Sustainable Development & Human Rights - Archive

On July 16th, governments adopted the Outcome of the Third Conference on Financing for Development, held in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), called the “Action Ababa Action Agenda” (AAAA or the “Outcome”). In a collective and sharp statement in response, civil society said that the conference “lost the opportunity to tackle the structural injustices in the current global economic system and ensure that development finance is people-centered and protects the environment.” The lack of ambition of the adopted text, though not a [...]

The United Nations Working Group on business and human rights this week urged Governments across the world to ensure that corporations do not undermine sustainable development, and called for greater transparency and accountability for how businesses address human rights risks and impacts. “States must set a clear vision for connecting the increasing role of the private sector and businesses in development with accountability and agreed standards for business practices aligned with human rights,” the independent expert group said in a [...]

The Third International Conference on Financing for Development is coming to an end. Yesterday, the countries reached an agreement in Addis Ababa on the final outcome document. The Conference on Financing for Development has reportedly seen the presence of 27 heads of government and many more senior government representatives from the capitals. Representatives of UN Agencies, civil society from across the globe and the business community were also taking part in the conference. While the UN reports that the “groundbreaking [...]

This week, we witness state leaders, high-level officials, civil society groups, and business representatives convene for the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD3) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to discuss and agree on an action plan for financing development, including the Sustainable Development Goals to be adopted by UN member states in the September 2015 Summit. “We started from an optimistic viewpoint on FfD3 and now ending with so much disappointment over what seems like retrogression from old agreements [...]

The debt crisis in Greece dominates the news in Europe but a significant related event lacks public attention – the 3rd International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD3). This is being held in Ethiopia from 13 to 16 July and is designed to come up with proposals on how to shape international financial relations more equally and to finance efforts to advance sustainable development. FFD3 deals with vital issues such as the mobilization of domestic resources and reform of tax [...]

One of the more contested issues at the 3rd International Conference on Financing for Development, currently underway in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia is how to improve/ensure global cooperation in tax matters. During preparatory negotiations in New York, a proposal surfaced that would upgrade a UN expert committee on the issue into a full-fledged political, and more importantly universal, commission. The commission could deal with issues like fighting tax evasion and avoidance, could set standards for double taxation agreements and for how [...]

FFD3_logo_vertical-hires_website The coordination group for the civil society participation for the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (Addis Ababa, July 13-16 2015) has convened a forum for civil society in advance of the conference. One outcome of this forum was a declaration with reflections and recommendations to the Member States of the United Nations and the international community. Furthermore, the CSO FfD group published a statement, expressing the concerns and demands they have regarding the draft outcome document of [...]

Public-private partnerships (often referred to as PPPs) are increasingly promoted as a way to finance development projects. Donor governments and financial institutions, such as the World Bank, have set up multiple donor initiatives to promote changes in national regulatory frameworks to allow for PPPs, as well as provide advice and finance to PPP projects. PPPs also feature prominently in the discussions around the post-2015 and the financing for development agendas. Currently, there is a strong push to increase the involvement [...]

417 NGOs from 105 countries, including GPF, signed a Joint Statement on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity & Expression and Intersex Status which was delivered on Monday 29 June 2015 at the 29th UN Human Rights Council. The statement urges the Council to act now and end the violence and discrimination suffered by LGBTI people around the world. It welcomes the resolution passed by the Council in September 2014 but expresses concern about severe human rights violations from State and non-State [...]

Global Trends analyzes current developments and longer-term trends in the fields of peace and security, world economy and society, and sustainable development. Global Trens has been first launched in 1991 and it is based on a wealth of statistical data and information from a variety of international sources and presents its findings in a clear and accessible format. Applying a multidisciplinary approach, it aims to explain patterns and linkages in complex global processes and identify the potential for more responsible [...]

“Green Growth” is frequently promoted as the new growth paradigm. It is of a different quality as it is largely based on enhanced material/resource/energy efficiency, structural changes towards a service-dominated economy and a switch in the energy mix, favouring renewable energy. But can Green Growth also mitigate climate change at the required scale and pace? Is it the solution to the multiple crises we are facing or an excuse to do nothing fundamental to bring about a U-turn of global [...]

Negotiations towards the Third International Conference on Financing for Development, to be held in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) on July 13-16, are in full gear. In line with ongoing trends in the landscape of development assistance, deliberations thus far have shown a strong promotion, especially by Northern countries, of increased reliance on private sector sources for development funding. Two new studies set out to interrogate what does this mean for the language on human rights accountability of the private sector that [...]

The outcome document for the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD3) is being finalized at the United Nations in New York. This is a key moment to make an assessment and influence the issues under negotiation to ensure progress is not lost in the interests of fact-tracking consensus. The outcome document must establish new ground on a range of issues such as combatting illicit financial flows and global tax cooperation.

Key to this is action on proposals of [...]

As governments negotiate the Third Financing for Development Conference (FFD 3) to be held in Addis Ababa (13-16 July 2015), an important decision that they will have to make refers to the follow-up process. This brief piece by CIDSE offers some thoughts on the international dimensions of such monitoring, accountability and review mechanisms. The briefing note elucidates that the FFD follow-up process has two roles to fulfill: it should serve as a coordination forum for tracking progress on all sources [...]

As the UN holds two seminal, simultaneous meetings this week to determine the future of the post-2015 and the financing for development (FfD) agendas, the Center for Economic and Social Rights and Third World Network are launching a new briefing which argues that human rights obligations can provide a fresh lens on one of the most entrenched stalemates in the negotiations: the respective responsibilities of governments North and South to achieve and to finance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

EU Ministers met on May 26 to finalise the EU’s position ahead of the crucial UN Financing for Development (FFD) summit in Addis Ababa. The EU position reveals that the Ministers prefer to promote a controversial and problematic reliance on private finance rather than tackling crucial systemic issues such as the need for global tax reform. Other issues addressed during the meeting were the existing aid commitments as well as tax justice. However, according to the head of Tax Justice [...]

For decades, development policy was shaped by the notion that the poor countries of the Global South needed money from the wealthy North in order to advance in their development. At the latest since the 2008/09 financial crisis this view of things has, it seems, begun to change. In the current Global Governance Spotlight, GPF's Wolfgang Obenland, analyses the negotiations on the outcome document of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development, scheduled to take place from 13 to [...]

Developing countries—emerging, middle-income, and least developed—will be going to the Third Financing for Development (FfD) Conference in Addis Ababa in July 2015 with a set of demands to reform and rebalance the international financial system in order to facilitate the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Manual Montes (South Centre) outlines views from the Global South on this conference in a new briefing for the "Future United Nations Development System" project.

Getting the right balance between public and private sector roles and responsibilities in the Financing for Development and Post-2015 process will be fundamental to prospects for sustainable, inclusive development. Yet early evidence suggests this balance is already awry, skewed far in favour of private interests. Are we seeing a process of outsourcing the international agenda?

For the first time, the international development agenda, through the FfD3 and post-2015 processes, is considered universal, applying to every country. Current deliberations, however, reveal different understandings of what universality means. To some, the concept overshadows the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ (CBDR), agreed in the Rio Declaration and reaffirmed by subsequent global and international documents—a concern voiced by the Indian delegate among others during Financing for Development talks.

Civil society organizations and social movements around the world struggling against corporate abuse achieved a first victory in June last year when the UN Human Rights Council adopted Resolution 26/9, establishing an Intergovernmental Working Group whose the mandate shall be to elaborate an international legally-binding instrument to regulate the activities of business enterprises. However, there remain important challenges to ensure that a robust treaty ensuring genuine corporate accountability and access to justice will be drafted in a participatory and transparent [...]

New Discussion paper for the Civil Society Reflection Group on Global Development Perspectives I March 2015

The Post-2015 Agenda with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as one of its key components is intended to be truly universal and global. This requires a fair sharing of costs, responsibilities and opportunities among and within countries. The principle of »common but differentiated responsibilities« (CBDR) must be applied. Coupled with the human rights principle of equal rights for all and the need to respect [...]

CESR has long argued that embedding meaningful accountability into the post-2015 agenda will be critical to ensure it stands any chance of achieving its goals and creating real, empowering change on the ground. As the Secretary-General has said, a new paradigm of accountability is in fact “the real test of people-centred, planet-sensitive development.” In May 2015, one week of the intergovernmental negotiations will be dedicated to discussing what this new paradigm will look like, but already there are signs that [...]

Responding to widespread anger about corporate tax avoidance, the impacts of such avoidance on inequality and poverty, and concerns that current tax reform processes are inadequate, a new nonpartisan body, the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT), has been established to propose reforms from the perspective of the public interest. ICRICT was initiated by a broad coalition that includes Action Aid, Alliance-Sud, CCFD-Terre Solidaire, Christian Aid, the Council for Global Unions, the Global Alliance for Tax [...]

The new working paper by Christian Aid and the Center for Economic and Social Rights responds to the list of preliminary indicators that the the United Nations Statistical Commission is considering. Their analysis and concrete proposals are based on the premise that a human rights-aligned fiscal data revolution is essential to expose the hidden injustices buried in the way resource-related policies are conducted, and who truly benefits from them.