Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

​ ​ SAVE THE DATE 'Making your voice heard: How to influence the post-2015 development agenda' 1:15 - 2:45pm, Monday, 23 March Room 2726 UN Secretariat Building, ​New York Beyond2015 ,  SD2015   and the   Tellus Institute  invite you to participate in this advocacy training to help you and your organisation successfully engage government delegates during the remaining post-2015 intergovernmental sessions. Following up on last month's training session, learn how to effectively influence governments and other key decision makers to make sure we bring about the world we want by 2030​. Main presenter and trainer: Felix Dodds 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 need click   here ...

Waking up to find a copy of the zero draft for Financing for Development was not as welcome as you might think I had other plans for today but perhaps reading it in bits was better than in one sitting. I don’t intend to comment on updated sections relating to the traditional Monterrey Consensus - there are a number of organizations that are focusing on that. I will keep as I have in previous blogs to the ‘sustainable development finance side’. After all this conference acknowledges that it is focusing on ‘A global framework for financing sustainable development and mobilizing the means to implement the post 2015 development agenda’ in the proposed Addis Ababa Accord. The zero draft for those that have not read it is broken into two: The Addis Ababa Accord, and The Addis Ababa Action Agenda Todays blog will focus on the Accord a following blog will focus on the Action Agenda. The Accord As you might imagine it is a short and intended to be a visionary document ...

One of favorite authors Sir Terry Pratchett has just died aged 66. Since 2007 he has been suffering from  Alzheimer's but has continued to write his wonderful and amazing Discworld books. For those who have not yet read any of his books I strongly suggest you celebrate his life by reading one. What is discworld? It is  a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants which are in turn standing on the back of a giant turtle, the  Great A'Tuin .  In his Discworld books he introduced Death as one of the recurring characters in many of the 40 books. He sold over 85 million copies of his books in 37 different languages.  His humor at times was dark and perhaps he drew on his experience as Press Officer for the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) in an area which covered three nuclear power stations. He later joked that he had demonstrated "impeccable timing" by making this career change from a journalist to a press officer so soon...

The open call for science briefs for the Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR) 2015 has resulted in the submission of 140 plus contributions. Providing a bottom-up sample of “crowd-sourced” sustainable development issues, the briefs cover topics from anti-biotic resistance, karst and caves, through to the health of the oceans. The briefs constitute pool of digestible knowledge, pointing policy-makers to critical new findings and emerging concerns. The briefs have been made available on https://gsdr2015.wordpress.com/ . All those interested are invited to read and comment on the briefs; the outcome of the open comment/review will be taken into account in the preparation of the GSDR 2015 chapter on “emerging issues”. All the briefs are available on the GSDR website: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/topics/science/crowdsourcedbriefs The Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR) is a United Nations publication aiming to strengthen the science-policy interface ...

Some of the readers of this blog may not know about the BBC TV programme Top Gear and its controversial presenter Jeremy Clarkson. A little googling and you will learn that Top Gear is a car show that has been on BBC TV since the  1977 the present presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May have been presenting it since 2002 and benefited from the internet and the ability to download programmes.  The show brings in $225 million a year for BBC Worldwide and is shown in 170 countries and is one of the top selling programmes they produce. I have to say I am a fan of the programme and at times the challenges that the presenters are given you would have to think the producers were trying to kill them. There are some great journeys they go on being given a certain amount of money and having to buy a car in a different country and then go from A to B. Celebrities come on the programme and  have to race a car around a race track one of my favorites was the Tom...

As we approach the May session of the Post 2015 negotiations the focus will shift to follow up mechanisms. I thought this was a good time to put forward some suggestions so here is post 1 on ideas for the Follow Up.  National Councils or Commissions on Sustainable Development After the 1992 Earth Summit many countries set up National Councils or Commissions on Sustainable Development to develop Sustainable Development Strategies often drawing from Agenda 21 chapters, though not exclusively. Countries were expected to finish their strategies by 2002 and then  engage  in  implementing  them. There were over 100 councils or commissions created in the period from 1992-2002. These Councils and Commissions differed in where they were set up in government or in some cases as an independent entity. They were established through widely diverse mechanisms such as: Presidential decree: Argentina and Vietnam. Ministerial decree: Niger and Barbado...

Introduction  This blog is based on the  background paper produced  for the UNDESA event on partnership held at the UN on 27th of February.  In September 2015, the United Nations will adopt a new transformative development agenda.  It has been agreed in principle that multi-stakeholder partnerships between business, NGOs, Governments, the United Nations and other actors will play an important role in the implementation of the agenda. Since 2000, there has been a plethora of partnerships within and outside the United Nations, some considered effective and making an impact on development but many falling short of delivering results and incurring high transaction costs.  A Little History The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) of 1992 was the first Conference to explicitly call for the active engagement of various “social groups” in the follow-up of Agenda 21 and identified their roles and responsibilities....