Sustainable Development & Human Rights

Alliance Sud, a coalition of Swiss development NGOs, criticizes industrialized countries for not living up to the promises made at the Cancún climate conference in 2010. While rich countries had pledged additional funding to support developing countries, they have resorted to cosmetic tactics instead. Thus, Alliance Sud points out that Switzerland is trying to declare private financing as public contributions. Yet, more innovative public finance mechanisms would be needed instead. This process could endanger a global climate change agreement.

In an open letter to UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon, a coalition of women's rights groups DAWN, IWHC and Resurj urge Ban to reassert the importance of women's rights within the post-2015 development agenda. They call on the Secretary-General to put on emphasis on women's reproductive health, sexual education for both girls and boys and the promotion of women's leadership. The groups see an emerging consensus in the High-Level Panel's report, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network's report and the Global Compact's [...]

Pacific women advocates as part of the Women’s Major Group have issued a statement for the Pacific Small Island Developing States Preparatory Meeting in Nadi, Fiji. The statement calls for recognizing the central role of women for sustainable development in the Pacific area in the outcome document of the Preparatory Meeting that took place in June 2013. The Meeting is part of preparations for Third International Confenrence on SIDS (Small Island Developing States) that will be held in 2014.

“The worst thing about living in extreme poverty is the contempt - that they treat you like you are worthless, that they look at you with disgust and fear and that they even treat you like an enemy.”

“We experience the violence of being discriminated against, of not existing, not being part of the same world, not being treated like other human beings.”

Time and again, poverty is associated with violence against the people that suffer it. Poverty is frequently [...]

The debates on an agenda for international co-operation and development beyond 2015 offer the opportunity to (re-)address in a holistic manner well-being and justice in societies. Given the economic, social and ecological challenges in the world, this is urgently needed.

The present framework of international development goals centering on the MDGs and the related strategies do not provide adequate answers to the global problems, be they accelerated global warming, the growing gap between rich and poor, the financialization of the [...]

Die Initiative „New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition“ (G8NA) wurde auf dem G8-Gipfel im Mai 2012 in Camp David auf Initiative der US-Regierung gestartet. Das erklärte Ziel ist es, 50 Millionen Menschen in Sub-Sahara Afrika bis zum Jahr 2022 aus der Armut zu befreien. Mehr private Investitionen in die Landwirtschaft sollen dies möglich machen. Die G8NA umfasst die G8-Regierungen, die Privatwirtschaft und afrikanische Regierungen.

Bislang wurden Partnerschaftsabkommen (Country Cooperation Frameworks) mit sechs afrikanischen Staaten abgeschlossen: Äthiopien, Burkina Faso, Elfenbeinküste [...]

The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD)Beyond 2014 took place from July 7-10. As a product of the conference, participants developed The Hague Civil Society Call to Action on Human Rights and ICPD Beyond 2014. If you would like to support the conference's work on the themes of women’s autonomy and reproductive rights, sexual health and well-being and human rights and gender-based discrimination and violence, please sign the petition.

Der internationalen Entwicklungs- und Umweltpolitik stehen entscheidende Weichenstellungen bevor. In den vergangenen Jahren war sie geprägt von den Millenniumsentwicklungszielen mit dem Zieljahr 2015. In den kommenden drei Jahren muss nun über die Zukunft der MDGs entschieden werden. Dabei geht es um weit mehr als nur die Verlängerung der Laufzeit oder die Erweiterung des Zielkatalogs.

Die Vereinten Nationen sprechen von der „Post-2015-Entwicklungsagenda“ d.h. es geht grundsätzlicher um die Prioritäten, Konzepte und Strategien von Entwicklungspolitik nach dem Jahr 2015. Zugleich wurde bei [...]

Growing inequalities and unregulated finances are expropriating people everywhere from their fair share in the benefits of global prosperity. The Social Watch Report 2012 concentrates on the effects of present mismangements and false recepies on the rights and well-being of future generations. “The ‘right to a future’ is the most urgent task of the present,” writes Roberto Bissio, coordinator of Social Watch, member of the Reflection Group and editor-in-chief of the study. “It is about nature, yes, but it is [...]

The world faces an unprecedented coincidence of global crises. They testify to the failure of the dominant model of development and economic progress that is oriented on a technocratic modernisation path, is blind to human rights and the ecological limits of the global ecosystem, confuses growth of Gross Domestic Product with progress in society, and regards poverty as a primarily technical challenge in which categories of inequality and social justice are neglected.

The Civil Society Reflection Group on Global Development [...]