UN Women launches a new Private Sector Leadership Advisory Council. The council, which is expected to offer advice to accelerate women's economic empowerment, end violence against women and help to close the funding gap for UN Women, is comprised of ten corporate executives from companies ranging from Tupperware to Chanel to Anglo American. The council is supposed to provide the foundation for further "Golden Triangle" partnerships, as they are being called, between corporations, governments and civil society. The council will [...]
Nachhaltige Entwicklung und Menschenrechte
The European Commission (EC) published an action plan which includes proposals to further private sector engagement in developing countries. The EC’s policy paper is an attempt to redraw European development cooperation to encourage policy change. By looking closer to the policy paper, Eurodad states that the EC misses to tackle the fact that main European impacts on private sector in developing countries are driven by European policies in other areas like trade, agriculture or tax. In doing so, the EC [...]
The Open Working Group (OWG) established a draft 'chapeau' for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in its 11th session in New York. The text consists of two pages which will accompany the framework of the goals and is sent to all Member States. Already beforehand, developing countries stressed that the narrative have to reflect inter alia an inclusion of the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR). Many key developing countries recognize the reference to CBDR in the chapeau. Nevertheless [...]
Latin America cautions against partnerships without effective governance
Third World Network (TWN) picks up on the debate over the performance of the private sector as contributor to the Post-2015 Agenda. Opinions over its role at UN level are dividing, according to TWN. Some in the international community recognize the private sector as crucial partners. In contrast, an increasing number of civil society organizations and networks worldwide express their substantive concerns over private sector financing for development. In line with this, Latin American countries like Brazil call attention to [...]
Human Rights Policy Brief
As the negotiation of the post-2015 development agenda further evolves from broad ideas to more and more specific targets, the question of how to sufficiently finance sustainable development becomes increasingly important. Prior to the 11th session of the Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals between May 5 and May 9 organizations Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) and Christian Aid published a policy briefing tackling exactly this issue. In order to ensure sufficient, equitable and accountable financing [...]
The International Campaign for Women’s Right to Safe Abortion is a coalition of organizations and networks that support women’s right to safe, legal abortion, with members in 108 countries across the globe. Our aims are to promote universal access to safe, legal abortion as a women’s health and human rights issue, and to support women’s autonomy to make their own decisions whether and when to have children and have access to the means of acting on those decisions without risk [...]
UN General Assembly discusses monitoring and accountability in the new development agenda
Presentation by Social Watch coordinator Roberto Bissio at the Interactive Dialogue “Elements for a Monitoring and Accountability Framework for the Post-2015 Development Agenda” convened by the President of the General Assembly of the United Nations
Some four thousand years ago, King Hammurabi had the laws of his domains between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers carved in stone and placed in front of his palace. The laws were written in the plain language of the people, not in the arcane idiom [...]
A broad alliance of civil society organizations published a joint statement critically assessing the inclusion of human rights in the post-2015 sustainable development agenda prior to the session of the Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals from May 5 to May 9. The CSOs applaud the universality of a working document of the OWG proposing fifteen focus areas and specific targets for possible SDGs, which reflect the current state of negotiations within the OWG. On the other hand [...]
Governing for Sustainability
The Worldwatch Institute is releasing the 2014 edition of its “State of the World” series. “Governing for Sustainability” examines how action—on climate, species loss, inequity, and other sustainability crises—is being driven by local, people’s, women’s, and grassroots movements around the world, often in opposition to the agendas pursued by governments and big corporations. The book’s contributors analyze a variety of trends and proposals, including regional and local climate initiatives, the rise of benefit corporations and worker-owned firms, the need for [...]
At the Special High-Level Meeting of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), held in New York on April 14-15, 2014, governments disscussed about features of new development goals which will replace the Millennium Development Goals in 2015. Commitments to financing the new goals are expected to play an important role in those negotiations. In this regard, human rights organizations argue that human rights should inform commitments to finance the new development agenda.
