Let us not rest on our laurels

I’m on my way back from four days in Barbados, for the ninth and final workshop of the initial series of what is now Regions Refocus 2015. This Caribbean meeting was one of the best in a process bookended by small island states (with the Pacific meeting first, in June) with each meeting full of incredible people, good food, interesting side trips (Machu Picchu, for one), and truly interesting and productive meetings.

Let us not rest on our laurels, intoned the Barbadian representative of the Ministry of Finance during the opening of the regional workshop, upstairs in the cricket hall at University of the West Indies, Cave Hill. (The walls were decorated with the cream of the crop of Barbados’s cricket stars, black and white photographs of “the quintessentially elegant” King so-and-so, descriptors of the players’ prowess at batting and consistently sharp style. The IGDS professors wore ankara dresses and summarily dispatched the crispest moderation I have yet to witness -- informing us that no, the internet does not work, end of discussion.) And following that instruction, the workshop got right to the point. It tackling difficult issues (the narcotics industry, divisions between the women’s rights movement and that for LGBT rights) and innovative ones (a somewhat un-PC descriptor of the Caribbean’s comparative advantage in tourism, the business potential for regional expertise should the US completely legalize marijuana). Scholars and activists from a lot of sectors, ages, and countries came up with concrete proposals and energized plans for the way forward.

At lunch the first day, I had an interesting (and somewhat concerning) conversation with the head of the co-sponsoring institute at the university. I was telling her about our project, about some of the workshops we’ve co-organized and places we’ve gotten to go (nine regional meetings, eight sub-regions, nine months). Rather than asking about the project, she turned to me and said how incredible this must have been for me, and asked how it feels to travel the world learning about the negative effects of American policies on other places. I told her I feel very grateful (for the first part) and consistently disturbed (re: the second), and said I don’t know for sure, but I think I’ll probably end up working on American policy eventually. As an American, you’re only allowed to learn for so long before you have to go do try to something about it, I said. She agreed, with a slight nod of her intricately dreded head.

So, I’m incredibly proud of our project and of having helped to start it, thrilled about where it’s going and where it might take me, and gearing up for a whole lot of work to launch the first phase and continue with the second. But as Chris, our bespectacled taxi driver, responded while being grilled by one of the most impressive and intimidating participants, ideas are the number one thing that’s missing in the leadership of Barbados and the region. Our project is contributing to amending that deficit, at the global level. I’m contributing some of it, especially in the report and in the planning of phase II. But let me not rest on my laurels either, in terms of my own responsibilities and in outlining my career. We may have lay on the beach this trip, but our laptops sat squarely in our laps.

The Barbara Paper Is Finished (Confronting Development, published by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung)

I spent most of the past five months working on this paper with Barbara Adams, analyzing the SDGs. It's finally finished, and published! 

In the year 2000, the world’s leaders assembled at the Millennium Summit to affirm their commitment to an ambitious development agenda, later distilled into eight “Millennium Development Goals” (MDGs). The summit famously called, among other demands, for concrete and time-bound action to eradicate extreme poverty. Criticized from the outset for being crafted without broad consultation, for an excessive focus on “measurable,” quantitative goals, and for lack of accountability—especially for rich countries—the MDGs’ accomplishments have been dubious and uneven. As the MDGs’ expiration approaches in September 2015, their failure is unavoidable.

With this deadline approaching, the United Nations are presently considering what the world’s development agenda should be post-2015. In September, two distinct UN processes—the Open Working Group and the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing—are expected to converge in the 2015 Global Summit. These processes have been the fulcrums so far of efforts to shape the future agenda. They have benefited from wide-ranging substantive contributions and expertise, and have also generated diverse approaches to participation and engagement.

These parallel processes are taking place in a broader context defined by the Millennium Development Agenda, 2012’s Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, and the Financing for Development conferences. As the MDGs give way to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), it is necessary to ask, what is it that makes them sustainable? Who are the main actors shaping the goals, and what are their main interests? What role do business interests play, and what opportunities exist for member states, civil society, social movements, and others to shape these goals?

In this study, Barbara Adams and Kathryn Tobin give their take on the post-2015 process and suggest how various actors can intervene to shape these goals. Trained as an economist, Adams has spent decades working in (and writing about) international politics both in and out of the UN, including at the Quaker United Nations Office in New York, the UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service (UN-NGLS), and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). Tobin is an independent consultant for several UN-based organizations. She has previously worked for UN-NGLS as well as for NGOs and educational institutions in New York and Uganda.

The Sustainable Development Goals will help shape the global development agenda for years to come. They will affect not only the UN’s Secretariat, funds, and programmes but each member state as well as non-governmental organizations and the private sector around the world. If these processes converge to create an agenda that is universal and effective and which holds governments and others to account—that is to say if the UN lives up to its founding values—then it will reassert itself as the unique multilateral forum for addressing the many conflicts and crises that cannot be resolved by individual nations. Such an accomplishment would have implications not only for development work but across a whole spectrum of issues, and it is not too late for the United Nations—that is the organization, member states, and international civil society—to make it happen.

FULL TEXT (English) 
FULL TEXT (German)