Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

My 18th book Stakeholder Democracy: Represented Democracy in a Time of Fear is now available from Routledge direct or slighter later from Amazon.   Great for birthday, anniversary and Christmas presents. Written with my co-authors Jan-Gustav Strandenaes, Carolina Duque Chopitea, Minu Hemmati, Susanne Salz, Bernd Lakemeier, Laura Schmitz, and Jana Borkenhagen for their chapters - which are awesome!!  And thanks to Helen Clark for the Foreword. While underscoring that my co-authors do not necessarily agree with the chapters written by other people. "To mobilize action globally in line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development will require buy-in and commitments not just from governments, but from all segments of society. This book addresses a major component of that challenge – involving stakeholders in every part of the process to deliver on the promise of the SDGs. Many of the contributors have long led efforts to build an inclusive and democratic frame...

My new book Stakeholder Democracy: Represented Democracy in A Time of Fear (Routledge) is on advance order on amazon - out July 9th.   I would also like to thank my co-authors J an-Gustav Strandenaes, Carolina Duque Chopitea, Minu Hemmati, Susanne Salz, Bernd Lakemeier, Laura Schmitz, and Jana Borkenhagen for their chapters - which are awesome!! While underscoring that my co-authors do not necessarily agree with the chapters written by other people. The book will be out in July for the High Level Political Forum where we will be launching the book. Let me share with you the introduction for the book...and a few reviews out already. “A revolution is coming — a revolution which will be peaceful if we are wise enough; compassionate if we care enough; successful if we are fortunate enough — But a revolution which is coming whether we will it or not. We can affect its character; we cannot alter its inevitability.” (Kennedy, 1966) A changing world The ...

By Felix Dodds and Minu Hemmati This is published also on inter-press service  news agency. Mark Ritchie, former Minnesota Secretary of State and former president of the Minneapolis-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, sent Felix an email about a very interesting interview with Kevin Watkins, the CEO of Save the Children Fund (UK). The interview and commentary were by Russell Hargrave in devex: “Save the Children CEO on a new era of competition for aid”. Kevin Watkins the CEO of Save the Children Fund (UK) We hadn’t picked up that Kevin had left ODI and gone to Save in September 2016. A little background on Save and the SDGs: Save the Children was the last development oriented organisation to campaign against the SDGs, and instead kept lobbying for an MDG+ agenda. This continued up to the G7 meeting in 2014. There was also the controversy and the rebellion of the Save staff (including others) over a ‘Global legacy award’ given to Tony Blair in March 2015...

Blog Mini Series on MSPs for Sustainable Development By Dr. Minu Hemmati and Felix Dodds We are producing a series of blogs around the issue of Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships (MSPs) for Sustainable Development to help increase understanding about them: Blog 1 Definitions of MSPs and Related Issues Blog 2 Principles and Guidance Enshrined in Existing UN Decisions on MSPs Blog 3 Possible Additions to Enhance Guidance and Oversight for MSPs This blog mini series is based on a paper we prepared for a workshop held by the Friends of Governance for Sustainable Development group in April this year: “ Principles and Practices of Multi-stakeholder Partnerships for Sustainable Development – Guidance and Oversight from UN Decisions ” BLOG 3: Possible Additions to Enhance Guidance and Oversight for MSPs Updating Existing Decisions Much has happened since 2003, when ECOSOC passed the decision 61 on partnerships, and and we have gained a lot of experience with multi-sta...