Sustainable Development & Human Rights

The event aims at exploring the question of how women’s organizations and feminist movements can influence governmental decision-making. What strategies have proven to be effective to ensure policy agendas and laws reflect women’s interests? What are the factors and conditions under which non-state actors can effectively trigger and influence policy change?

Speakers:

Elisa Vega Sillo, Office for Depatriarchalization of the Vice-Ministry of Decolonization, Bolivia
Nitya Rao, University of East Anglia, Great Britain
Anne-Marie Goetz, New York University, United States
Rob [...]

At this event, we will discuss whether the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will be able to avoid the shortcomings of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), on which the UN development agenda was based so far. This question was also the subject of a study we recently published.

Speakers:

Dagmar Enkelmann, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Germany
Gathoni Blessol, The Rules und Bunge La Wamama Mashinani, Kenya
Barbara Adams, Global Policy Forum, United States
Yiping Cai, Development Alternatives with Women for a New [...]

By Barbara Adams, Gretchen Luchsinger

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 [...]

The_A_Word 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 [...]

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 [...]

By Barbara Adams, Gretchen Luchsinger

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.
An increasingly urgent imperative for change informs the two–track negotiations unfolding at the United Nations from [...]

In a Joint Statement released by OHCHR, the Chairpersons of the United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies give their opinion on the post-2015 development agenda and call for accountability to be strengthened. Their call was issued as UN Member States started discussions to finalize the draft set of 17 sustainable development goals which will be put forward for adoption by heads of state at a UN summit in New York in September 2015. The statement also highlights the important role [...]

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 [...]

In September 2015, the heads of state and government of the United Nations (UN) Member States are scheduled to decide on the Post-2015 agenda. This is to include not only a list of universal Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) but also a mechanism for monitoring and review. What would the review mechanism have to look like to contribute to the implementation of sustainable development? Marianne Beisheim, researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) examines the debate taking [...]