We are co-hosting two events at the UN Commission on the Status of Women, together with the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung—New York Office, DAWN, and UNRISD in New York City. We will be joined by feminist activists and politicians from Germany, Croatia, Bolivia, Colombia, Nepal, Cambodia, and Kenya, to examine the structural causes of poverty and develop alternatives: "The SDG on Inequality: How Useful Can This Be for Women?" (Tuesday, March 10, 2015, 8:30-10:00 AM) and "20 Years after Beijing: How Can Women’s Movements Effectively Mobilize for Policy Change?" (Tuesday, March 10, 2015, 3:00-4:45 PM).

In den Verhandlungen über die globale Entwicklungsagenda für die Zeit nach dem Jahr 2015 beginnt nun die heiße Phase. Im September 2015 wollen die Vereinten Nationen die Post-2015-Agenda beschließen. Einen zentralen Baustein bilden die zukünftigen Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung, die SDGs. Sie sollen universelle Gültigkeit besitzen und sind damit auch für Deutschland relevant. Das Global Policy Forum und terre des hommes veröffentlichen vor diesem Hintergrund im Februar den Report „Gut leben global“. In ihm diskutieren wir, wie SDGs für Deutschland vor dem Hintergrund der Debatten über alternative Ansätze der Wohlstandsmessung aussehen können. Dabei geht es auch um Indikatoren, die die internationale Verantwortung Deutschlands und seinen Beitrag zur globalen Nachhaltigkeit erfassen.

In a new article released by Future United Nations Development System (FUNDS) , Roberto Bissio gives his take on the post-2015 process and suggests what must be done to ensure the promises made will be fulfilled. Twenty-two independent UN human rights rapporteurs wrote to the Rio+20 Summit that “real risk exists that commitments made in Rio will remain empty promises without effective monitoring and accountability.” This danger also exists for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The absence of specific targets for monitoring and accountability implies specific consensus about next steps is missing. In fact, many of the targets are essentially impossible to assess quantitatively because they refer to concepts for which there are no indicators or no internationally agreed definition. Governments are primarily responsible to their own citizens through oversight bodies such as parliaments, and so it will be up to civil society to demand and promote regular reporting on national progress.

Despite snowstorm warnings and ice-cold temperatures in New York, the Financing for Development (FfD) negotiations managed to pick up speed when governments convened for the first drafting session at the end of January. They are currently negotiating the outcome of the upcoming Addis Ababa Conference on Financing for Development, which will take place on July 13-16 this year, and is planned as a key milestone ahead of the Post-2015 Summit and the UNFCCC Climate Conference later this year. Tove Maria Ryding of Eurodad reports from this latest round of negotiations.

2015 is a pivotal year. The post–2015 sustainable development agenda currently being drafted is premised on the reality that the present model of development is not working, given worsening inequalities and straining planetary boundaries. All countries and peoples—and the planet on which we depend–have the right to live with a better model, one that is inclusive and sustainable.

To give credit to this occasion, Global Policy Forum and Social Watch launch a new briefing series on the Post-2015 and FfD3 processes today with a first issues on "Post-2015 and FfD3: Debates Begin, Political Lines Emerge. The subsequent briefings will look into negotiations, positions and ideas, will - when the time is ripe - look at the results and monitor their implementation. There is a lot more to come...

A very broad international group of Civil Society Organizations has published a critical response to a paper outlining elements of a Financing for Development (FfD) Agenda by the co-chairs of the preparatory process of the upcoming 3rd FfD Conference in Addis Ababa in July 2015. Overall, the CSOs say, the document provides a good starting point for the first drafting sessions and includes most (but not all) of the policy proposals necessary to ensure a successful outcome of the Addis Ababa conference. However, the activists are concerned that the Elements paper does not follow the outcomes of previous FfD conferences, which raises several problems in terms of whose interests will be heard and what issues will be debated. Also, the lack of explicit language on the "global partnership for development" and the duties of states under the Human Rights and Millennium Declarations are highlighted.

Picture: worldislandinfo.com

You are cordially invited to a side-event by the Permanent Mission of Brazil to the UN, CIDSE and Social Watch on Thursday, January 29, 2015 in the UN Conference Building, New York. Dealing with responsibilities in a financing sustainable development context, this event seeks to generate discussion on conceptual challenges such as an evenhanded approach to the three pillars of sustainable development, adapting a framework like the Financing for Development process to the universal agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals without denaturalizing and decontextualizing it and how to incorporate important principles agreed at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development.

Following the global financial crisis, low-, middle-and high-income countries are seeing increased levels of sovereign debt. Today, no international mechanism exists to deal comprehensively and effectively with sovereign debt problems. This submission to the UN ad hoc committee on debt that was prepared and endorsed by 27 Civil Society Organizations, calls for an international and independent debt workout mechanism.