This week (3–7 February) sees the eighth meeting of the UN’s ‘open working group on sustainable development – part of the ongoing process bringing together sustainable development goals and a review of the MDGs to examine what should happen to the international development agenda after 2015. Keen followers of debate will have seen the earlier High Level Panel report which codified a set of proposals, followed by the Secretary General’s initial response. A web-based consultation on the World We Want website has been considering inequality issues ahead of the OWG.
We’ve been looking at CAFOD’s brilliant attempt to make the initially opaque process accessible to mere mortals, which suggests that the open working group meeting should be followed by a process of report writing to inform the proposals that are to be discussed within the UN system in the run-up to September 2015. We’ve written on the post-2015 debate before, particularly on inequality, and though we will doubtless return to the topic (…), there are 5 questions we hope the Open Working Group will be thinking about this week.
1) Improving nutrition. Child malnutrition is an underlying cause of child mortality. It not only affects children’s physical hechallenge to improve skills and capacities in developing countries. What can the post-2015 agenda do to link increasing societal we
2) Gender and causes of disadvantage. There is an important focus in the background papers on gender-based inequalities, mirroring concern in wider development debates. But how should the post-2015 process target the underlying causes of gender differences, not only in terms of discrimination but also the different economic opportunities and social roles open to men and women which underpin differences in childhood?
3) Improving quality, as well as coverage, in basic services. In the MDGs, important store was put in extending access to key services such as sanitation, safe water and primary education. However, the very real successes made in coverage mask inequities not only in who has access, but also whether people are able to use services and the quality of services they received (a point made in the High Level Panel report). Dirty toilets and dark and unsafe environments create a barrier for children to use them. Children attend schools but may not learn. How will the post-2015 agenda deal with the (very difficult) challenge of accounting for quality as well as coverage?
4) Dealing with multidimensional problems. Children’s lives are not about school, he
5) Ensuring growth improves living standards without widening gaps. Underlying many inequalities of outcome – how much children learn, the schools they attend, how he
This week (3–7 February) sees the eighth meeting of the UN’s ‘open working group on sustainable development – part of the ongoing process bringing together sustainable development goals and a review of the MDGs to examine what should happen to the international development agenda after 2015. Keen followers of debate will have seen the earlier High Level Panel report which codified a set of proposals, followed by the Secretary General’s initial response. A web-based consultation on the World We Want website has been considering inequality issues ahead of the OWG.
We’ve been looking at CAFOD’s brilliant attempt to make the initially opaque process accessible to mere mortals, which suggests that the open working group meeting should be followed by a process of report writing to inform the proposals that are to be discussed within the UN system in the run-up to September 2015. We’ve written on the post-2015 debate before, particularly on inequality, and though we will doubtless return to the topic (…), there are 5 questions we hope the Open Working Group will be thinking about this week.
1) Improving nutrition. Child malnutrition is an underlying cause of child mortality. It not only affects children’s physical hechallenge to improve skills and capacities in developing countries. What can the post-2015 agenda do to link increasing societal we
2) Gender and causes of disadvantage. There is an important focus in the background papers on gender-based inequalities, mirroring concern in wider development debates. But how should the post-2015 process target the underlying causes of gender differences, not only in terms of discrimination but also the different economic opportunities and social roles open to men and women which underpin differences in childhood?
3) Improving quality, as well as coverage, in basic services. In the MDGs, important store was put in extending access to key services such as sanitation, safe water and primary education. However, the very real successes made in coverage mask inequities not only in who has access, but also whether people are able to use services and the quality of services they received (a point made in the High Level Panel report). Dirty toilets and dark and unsafe environments create a barrier for children to use them. Children attend schools but may not learn. How will the post-2015 agenda deal with the (very difficult) challenge of accounting for quality as well as coverage?
4) Dealing with multidimensional problems. Children’s lives are not about school, he
5) Ensuring growth improves living standards without widening gaps. Underlying many inequalities of outcome – how much children learn, the schools they attend, how he