Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

How often have you tried to explain what it is you do at the UN only to find friends and families eyes gloss over? Do they really understand how important bracketing text is or a comma here or a full stop there? Or perhaps you have friends who want to follow you into intergovernmental negotiations and experience the wonders of the Vienna Cafe!! Well, now they can!! Great presents for anyone interested in sustainable development. Without understanding the history its difficult to understand the present or plan for the future. The Vienna Cafe trilogy is their opportunity to relive some of your wonderful moments. Not to be confused with the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, which is in five parts, the Vienna Cafe trilogy isn't in another galaxy just a cafe in the basement of the UN or other intergovernmental venues. The latest volume of the trilogy is N egotiating the Sustainable Development Goals: A transformational agenda for an insecure world by Felix Dodds, Amb...

If you are new to the wonderful world of international negotiations on sustainable development or want to understand how it all developed from its early days in the 1960s, to the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 then this is the trilogy for you. Like the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy inFive Parts – this trilogy may have future books but for now this is your guide to what was agreed when it was agreed, why it was agreed and why it was or was not implemented. These books I wrote with a set of different authors who brought their own perspectives to the book and with mine we hopefully gave you some answers. The first book of the Vienna Cafe Trilogy is “Only One Earth: The LongRoad via Rio to Sustainable Development” written with Maurice Strong the father of sustainable development and Michael Strauss a well-known journalist and press adviser. The book covers the forty years from the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment...

Dear Friends, Its the time of year to be thinking of Christmas presents and I have some suggestions :-) Intergovernmental negotiations can be very confusing and so I have tried contributed over the years  to a number  of books to help the next generation of 'bracketiers'. Governance for Sustainable Development: Ideas for the Post 2015 Agenda Governance for Sustainable Development: Ideas for the Post 2015 Agenda is edited by: Hoonmin Lim, Sara Luna and Oana Rebedea, David Banisar Felix Dodds and Quinn McKew. The governments of Mexico, Romania and the Republic of Korea, with the technical support of the Tellus Institute and the organization ARTICLE 19, reinvigorated the “Group of Friends of the Governance for Sustainable Development”, which was created in the preparation of the Rio+20 Conference, as a flexible and informal space to discuss issues related to good governance and foster cooperation between multiple actors in the context of the Post-2015 Development A...

On Monday 28 th of July 2014, Felix Dodds [1] Jorge Laguna-Celis [2] and Liz Thompson’s [3]  book “From Rio+20 to a New Development Agenda” will have a much-awaited companion “The Plain Language Guide to Rio+20: Preparing for the New Development Agenda”   released in E-book form; thus constituting the definitive and most authoritative appraisal of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, otherwise known as Rio+20. Since before the Rio+20 conference, through Rio+20, and continuing today, many organizations have dedicated their input, thoughts, and work to improving the world we live in today. This book is designed to help people from all backgrounds understand what was agreed at Rio+20 and the relevant UN Commissions, Conferences and Summit that laid the foundation for Rio+20 and the new sustainable development goals which are expected to be agreed upon in September 2015. The book itself is divided into three core parts: Part one ...

Programme for May 1st was: Ms. Afaf Konja (Moderator) -Remarks by H.E. Mr. Román Oyarzun Marchesi Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Spain to the United Nations -Remarks by H.E. Mr. Antonio de Aguiar Patriota Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations -Remarks by H.E. Mr. Joseph Goddard Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Barbados to the United Nations -Remarks by H.E. Mrs. Yanerit Morgan Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Mexico to the United Nations -Message of appreciation on behalf of authors Mr. Jorge Laguna-Celis questions answered by co-authors Felix Dodds and Liz Thompson. Jorge Laguna-Celis (co-author) Brazilian Ambassador Patriota Yamina (UN Habitat), Valerie (Monaco)  Marco (UNV) and Katie Ambassador Isabelle F. Picco (Monaco) Spanish, Brazilian Ambassadors and Liz Thompson (co-author) Thanks to all those who attended a grea...

The Plain Language Guide to Rio+20: Preparing for the New Development Agenda is my second book with Jorge Laguna Celis and Liz Thompson and will eb a Kindle download in June. It was inspired by a publication, in 1993 by the Centre for Our Common Future called The Earth Summit’s Agenda for Change. In 2003 Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future produced an updated document after the Johannesburg Summit called The Plain Language Guide to the World Summit on Sustainable Development. We have reprinted below the original Preface from 1993 by Warren (Chip) Lindner, which expressed the vision that sprang from Rio and was embedded in the Johannesburg and Rio+20 Conferences. Chip was then the director of the Centre for Our Common Future and had been the secretary to the Brundtland Commission. He went on to be the political advisor to the chair of the 1998 World AIDS Conference and successfully campaigned for the conference to have its next conference, its first in a developing countr...

  Twenty years after the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, "The Earth Summit", the Rio+20 conference in 2012 brought life back to sustainable development. It did that by putting it at the centre of a new global development partnership, one in which sustainable development is the basis for eradicating poverty, upholding human development and transforming economies. This book is written by participants involved in the Rio+20 negotiations, it presents a unique insider analysis of not only what happened and why. It also identifies where the outcomes might impact in the future, particularly in the UN development agenda beyond 2015. The book throws light on the changing nature of multilateralism and questions frequent assumptions on how policy is defined within the UN. It shows that Rio+20 was more than an international meeting; it represented a culminating point of decades of successes and failures and a watershed moment for seminal concepts, ...

I am sitting at my local coffee house in Apex called Wake Zone listening to some relaxing music and enjoying my first coffee of the day. I wanted to reflect a little on 2013 as 2014 starts. This was my first full year as a consultant and not running an organization and I have to say I have enjoyed it very much. One of the highlights for me this last year has been doing a new book. New Book I had the absolute pleasure working with Liz Thompson and Jorge Laguna Celis on a new book ' From Rio+20 to a New Development Agenda: Building a Bridge to a Sustainable Future ' (out January 31st 2014) . The book looks at the preparations for Rio+20 through a government official (Jorge – Mexico), a leading UN civil servant (Liz – Assistant UN Secretary General and an Executive Coordinator for Rio+20) and myself the Executive Director of Stakeholder Forum. For me it was a new way of writing where we each took a third of the book and then spent a weekend at the Mexican Mission weaving in...