Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

We are here to help with delegate therapy Bracketing Therapists  As the negotiations are coming to an end on the Post 2015 Agenda you must be worrying what you will do with all that time you now will have. Delegate’s therapy is a service offered to help delegates to readjust to their lives after intensive negotiations. Gone are the long nights writing back to capitals for instructions. Gone are the stakeholders who want to meet you for coffee all the time. Gone are the group meetings where you can debate with colleagues how to change a word here or there to save the planet. Gone are the waiting with excitement for the next draft of the text. Gone are Vienna café coffees,  crepes  and salads. Gone are those moments waking up in the middle of night thinking I know what that text should be. Gone are the informal workshops to frame the ideas for the next meeting Gone are the Friends meetings – at least for the moment....

Wow we are, we hope, into the last five days of the Post 2015 process!!!!  By Friday there should be an agreement and lots of hugs, I understand, all round. Between now and then though there is some tough negotiations to be undertaken.  have to admit I didn't stay up to wait for ‘final draft’ of the Declaration to come out. I had spent part of Sunday evening at a 'Make A Wish' concert at the Bitter End rock venue in West Village.   So we are now down to the real negotiations. After my morning in the Vienna Cafe this is some of the areas I believe will cause some discussion and negotiations this week. The preamble has grown somewhat and has become more of a laundry list under the 5 Ps (Planet, People, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership) by doing so I think misses the point of the preamble and I don’t think what we have now under the 5 Ps adds anything.  The most import...

How   Can   Countries   Implement   and   Monitor   Sustainable   Development   Goals   (SDGS)?   Organised   by   the   Permanent   Missions   of   Hungary   and  Vietnam   to   the   United   Nations   and   Asia-   Europe Foundation   (ASEF) Monday,   July   20 th ,   from   1   PM   till   2:45   PM. Conference Room 6 in Conference Room Building  In September 2015, the global community will agree upon a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This process is one of the main outcomes of the Rio+20 Conference where UN member states agreed to launch a process to develop a set of SDGs, which will build on the Millennium Development Goals and frame the post-2015 development agenda. Implementation of the SDGs at the nationa...

This has been a long process. It was July 2011 in Solo Indonesia, when Colombia and Guatemala came forth with the idea of the SDGs, and later when Rio+20 started the process to develop them, the path has been tough. At the beginning it was opposed by some development Ministries in the north and by some of the development NGOs. But as part of this, we saw the re-framing the financing side of the equation to include sustainable development at Rio+20. This was one of the successes of G77 as was the idea of a technological facilitation mechanism and the SDGs of course. Finally, we are moving towards a final understanding of what the Post 2015 process will have delivered. The Financing for Development prepcoms have now reached their end and there is only the conference left to finalize everything. The first reading of the Declaration for the Post 2015 process has now been concluded the final session will be held the last two weeks of July.  It looks like a technology facilitatio...

What was very interesting about the last session of the post 2015 negotiations is that there seemed to be a convergence of views on what the main elements of  The Declaration might be. This will make it easier for the co-facilitators to produce a zero draft by June. Of course there were disagreements over issues such as common but differentiated responsibility and how to phrase human rights and I am sure when the text comes out a few more things. There was some very thoughtful comments by countries such as Panama on how to structure the document and again surprisingly there was much more support for the secretary generals six themes being part of The Declaration with possibly enabling paragraphs which would help in the media side of promoting the outcome. These are to just remind everyone: People: to ensure healthy lives, knowledge, and the inclusion of women and children Dignity: to end poverty and fight inequality Planet: to protect our ecosystems for all societies and our ...

Over the last twenty years or so I have seen a number of attempts to engage stakeholders in the negotiations at the UN. These include: Public, stakeholder or civil society hearings (they are often called different things) Speaking slots at intergovernmental negotiation sessions Participation in Round table (where there is a round table with stakeholders participating eg UNEP GC or High Level events with Heads of State) Presentation as an expert on a panel Stakeholder Dialogues with member states (UN Commission on Sustainable Development 1998-2002) Of these the last three are the ones which have had the biggest impact and the first two the least impact. There is a very good review of this done by Stakeholder Forum from around 2009 that is worth reading . Probably one of the best examples of impact was the stakeholder dialogues from the 1999 CSD where for 12 hours, yes I did say 12 hours,  there was an exchange between stakeholders and governments facilitated by...

Monday is the first day of the next phase on the SDGs, it all started in July 2011 in Solo Indonesia when Paula Caballero from Colombia supported by Guatemala and Peru suggested that we should have agreed some Sustainable Development Goals. That suggestion has gone through many iterations to the point where at the beginning of 2015 we find ourselves with 17 Goals and 169 targets, The big question is will this change? I don't think so. For those stakeholders just joining the discussion who may have amazing ideas - well you are too late. One of the great lessons that I have learnt from being around intergovernmental meetings for the last twenty years is be there at the beginning.  Probably the most influential input that stakeholders made from the UN DPI NGO Conference in Bonn to the SDGs was two months after the meeting in Solo when they came up with 17 SDGs. The paper became the main reference document for government discussions in the coming months. It covered 70% of what be...

              ​ ​ SAVE THE DATE 'Making your voice heard: How to influence the post-2015 development agenda' 6-8pm, Monday 19 January Room 27/26 UN Secretariat Building, ​New York Beyond2015 ,  SD2015   and the   Tellus Institute  invite you to participate in this practical training to help you and your organisation engage successfully in the post-2015 agenda over this coming year.  Find out the latest information and updates on post-2015 processes and learn how to effectively influence governments and other key decision makers to make sure we bring about the world we want by 2030​. Please register your interest to participate in this training session as soon as possible  as there is limited room capacity and participation will be confirmed on a first come, first serve basis. To register you nee...

On reflection last week  was a good SDG OWG meeting. It has been a long journey from Solo Indonesia in July 2011 when Colombia and Guatemala first placed on the table the idea of Sustainable Development Goals.  The move from 17 to 15 Goals did not make everyone happy but most countries went along though the last SDG OWG will probably operate still as 17. The chairs have done excellent work in taking countries with them and most stakeholders as they shave started to streamline the text. I do think that the call by some countries to start this process one SDG OWG earlier would have helped but that was their call. I have been following a number of issues including animals, human settlements and governance and they all had a good showing last week. Opposition to a human settlements goal had been led by the UK - as it wasnt in the High Level Panel Report - was silent in the room. This is good news and means that as a goal it joins the core group which doesn't have any objection...

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...