Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

Reprinted from the Tellus Institute Great Transition  Initiative   Opening Essay for a GTI Forum by  Richard Falk ( August 2021) The Imprisoned Imagination As the COVID-19 pandemic slowly subsides, it is not clear what lessons will be drawn by political leaders and publics around the world. Entrenched power, wealth, and conventional wisdom have demonstrated the overwhelming resilience of the global order even while the virus continues to ravage many national societies. Despite some notable exceptions revealing extremes of solidarity or discrimination, efficient competence or irresponsible partisanship, this reversion to the status quo occurred at all levels of social organization from the village to the world, especially the sovereign state. For the most part, rich and powerful governments used their leverage to corner the vaccine market, allowing a draconian market-driven logic to drive distribution that privileged intellectual property rights and technical knowhow,...

Monday 20 th April Conference Room B, UN New York, 1:15-2:45 Organized by UNCTAD, AVIVA, Tellus Institute and Stakeholder Forum Speakers UNCTAD, SDSN, AVIVA, Tellus Institute, and the UN Global Compact (TBC) This session aims to review the role of the private sector in helping to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals and Financing for Development. The 8 and 9 April interactive dialogues on the Zero draft of the FfD 3 rd Conference with the private sector and Civil Society showed huge differences in perceived role of the private sector . On the 8 th the private sector felt there was not enough on the enabling environment for the private sector, while on the 9 th with CSOs, there was a strong push back against the privatization of financing for development. We know public sources will not be sufficient and both the public and private sector will have to contribute to achieve the SDGs. The private sector will play a role in the partnership to achieve t...

As the outcome from Rio+20 continues to have impact long after the delegates have left Rio Central. Two weeks ago we saw the agreement on the setting up of the High Level Political Forum operating under the same rules as the old CSD for stakeholder engagement. The ongoing work of the Sustainable Development Goals Open Working Group and now announced the membership for the I ntergovernmental Committee of Experts in Sustainable Development Financing . The latest is the follow through on “85(k) strengthen the science-policy interface through review of documentation bringing together dispersed information and assessments, including in the form of a global sustainable development report, building on existing assessments; The Division for Sustainable Development within the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs are in the process of producing the first Global Sustainable Development Report. They have also opened it for input: “ Social and natural scientists , here is you...

Revising this Blog As my life continues after Stakeholder Forum I am revising  my online presence  This blog will be updated much more regularly and will focus on the post 2015 development goals, the follow up to Rio+20 and the main issues of the day on sustainable development as well as some of the new areas of work I am engaged in. As part of the revision my web site ( www.felixdodds.net ) will also be revised and should be ready for November 7. It will focus on some of consultancy services I will be offering and will keep an update on my publications. The photo above is from an event at Ramapo College promoting The Widening Circl e from the 18th of October. TWC recognises that civil society has become severely fragmented. Therefore, it has become more a reactive force to a prevailing agenda than being a proactive agenda setting force. This has diluted the impact of civil society. Part of the problem has been the lack of vision of unde...