In his final report to the UN Human Rights Council after a six-year term as Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter calls for the world’s food systems to be radically and democratically redesigned. “Objectives such as supplying diverse, culturally-acceptable foods to communities, supporting smallholders, sustaining soil and water resources, and raising food security within particularly vulnerable areas, must not be crowded out by the one-dimensional quest to produce more food,” he urges.
Nachhaltige Entwicklung und Menschenrechte
Das Gerechtigkeitsprinzip in den Klima- und Post-2015-Verhandlungen
Das Prinzip der gemeinsamen, aber unterschiedlichen Verantwortung (Common But Differentiated Responsibilities, CBDR) gilt als einer der Meilensteine des Erdgipfels von Rio 1992. Die Regierungen hatten damals ihren unterschiedlichen Beitrag zur Umweltzerstörung anerkannt – und damit auch ihre unterschiedliche Verantwortung, für die Wiederherstellung des Ökosystems und die Anpassung an Umweltschäden zu bezahlen. Heute ist dieses Prinzip zum Dreh- und Angelpunkt der Klima- und Post- 2015-Verhandlungen geworden. Der vorliegende Report beschreibt die aktuellen Kontroversen um das Rio-Prinzip, nimmt die wichtigsten Vorschläge zu [...]
In this column, Share the World's Resources' Rajesh Makwana calls for an end to the corporate capture of sustainable development policies, especially at the international level. Makwana cautions against the growing influence of corporate interests in UN processes and the pro-market solutions they advocate for, in particular the concept of a "green economy" that does not question the growth paradigm and proposes to monetize nature. His column comes at a time when GPF has just co-published a working paper on [...]
In 2012, the Rio+20 Conference agreed upon launching negotiations for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the Post-2015 era. While the MDGs’ targets were aimed at poverty reduction, several southern countries aimed at formulating and implementing concrete goals for a new agenda for sustainability and development. In a new publication German environmental and development organizations have therefore engaged in the discussion and present a set of ecological sustainability goals to be included in the Post-2015 Agenda and to put the ecology [...]
The EU's Fifth Project
The event will bring together leading thinkers, policy-makers, and civil society representatives, on the eve of the European elections. Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food on convening the conference, said : “A genuine transition in the way we produce and consume is the only true path to sustainability. But it must be accompanied by a transition in the way we govern.”
The transition towards sustainable societies goes beyond the ecological transition alone. Though it does include [...]
flowery rhetoric, little substance
The basic parameters of the future development agenda were laid out at the autumn session of the UN General Assembly. The roadmap was presented and initial answers given as to where the global journey should be taking us from 2015 on. The train to genuine sustainability could soon jump the tracks. Moreover After four UN reports, their is no mention of the need to transform financial, trade and economic relations to reduce glaring inequalities, says Swiss coalition Alliance Sud in [...]
In a new working paper, GPF's Lou Pingeot discusses the influence of transnational corporations in the Post-2015 process. This working paper by Brot für die Welt, Global Policy Forum and Misereor provides an overview of the main corporate actors in the post-2015 process and how they shape the discourse on development. The paper advocates for more transparency around the participation of corporations in UN processes, including their financial support to UN initiatives, and for more reflection on the risks of [...]
The International Budget Partnership (IBP) has launched a special issue of its newsletter that focuses on budgeting for environmental sustainability. In his contribution, Jens Martens, Director of the Global Policy Forum lines out the idea of 'Sustainable Development Budgets' and their key role as an integral part of the post-2015 agenda. Moreover articles include examples of what countries are doing to “green” their budgets in Philippines and Canada and what shall be done about environmentally harmful subsidies.
Assessing how loans are reported as development aid
A new report by Eurodad's Stéphanie Colin deal with the issue of concessional loans in development finance. In the context of tighter budgets in OECD-DAC countries governments are looking for methods to increase official development assitance (ODA) levels without budgetary implications. One way of doing this is reporting a larger share of loans to developing countries as ODA. Other measures in this directions are ideas to leverage development resources by 'blending' public with private funds. The report discusses the main [...]
As governments meet at the United Nations this week to debate aspects of the sustainable development agenda to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015, over 300 civil society organizations from all parts of the world have come together to demand human rights be integrated into every aspect of the new framework. Together they have issued a joint statement, advanced by a caucus of human rights organizations convened by the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), Amnesty International [...]
