Regions Refocus 2015, a new initiative fostering regional and feminist solidarities toward justice

In 2015 the world’s governments will define a global agenda for sustainable development, amidst global trends of rising inequality, declining economic growth rates, and mega public-private partnerships accelerating the scramble for resources, assets, and markets. In this context, a new initiative housed at the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation – Regions Refocus 2015 – fosters regional and feminist solidarities toward justice.

Please join us on 26 January for the launch of Regions Refocus 2015, at the Ford Foundation Headquarters or online via live webcast at www.daghammarskjold.se/regions-refocus. This event and collaborative publication will present experiences of advancing progressive public policies based on nine regional workshops held over the past nine months in partnership with civil society, government, sub-regional alliances, and the UN. Just as negotiations get underway for the Third Conference on Financing for Development and the Post-2015 Summit, this launch will feature regional perspectives on overcoming global obstacles that impede structural change for justice.

We hope you will be able to join us in New York or online for the launch of Regions Refocus 2015. In the meantime, follow us on Twitter @ReFocus2015 and join the conversation using #ReFocus2015. More information is attached and on our newly launched website, here: www.daghammarskjold.se/regions-refocus

Regions Refocus 2015
Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
Website: www.daghammarskjold.se/regions-refocus
Twitter: @ReFocus2015
Email: team@regionsrefocus.org
Register: https://regions-refocus.eventbrite.com
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An important reminder

Double standards beget cynicism, apathy, corruption and deterioration of democratic life and the very social fabric that holds communities together. Double standards also motivate people to raise their voices, organise, demand transparency and advocate for change. Therein lies our hope.
                            - Roberto Bissio, Prologue, The Social Impact of Globalization in the World (2002)


Reading through old Social Watch reports for the paper I'm writing...



Another observation, this one from 2008:

In October 2008, when the crisis hit the financial institutions and stock markets of the OECD member countries, their governments started a massive and unprecedented programme of government intervention, nationalizing banks, injecting massive subsidies into ailing institutions and re-regulating their financial sectors.
This response sits in direct contrast to the austere neoliberal policies pressed on developing countries by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and developed countries for the past 30 years. Governments in the South, as abundantly documented in this report, have been pushed to liberalize trade barriers, deregulate financial and labour markets, privatize national industries, abolish subsidies, and reduce social and economic spending. The State saw its role severely reduced. 
This double standard is unacceptable. The international financial system, its architecture and its institutions have been completely overwhelmed by the scale of the current financial and economic crisis. The financial system, its architecture and its institutions must be completely rethought. [...]
                                                      - Roberto Bissio, Rights in the Time of Crisis (Introduction) (2008)


And also, we're still waiting for the results of this point, depressingly prescient and as relevant now as in 2008...

The developing countries have been affected by the falling prices of their export commodities, the devaluation of their currencies against the dollar, the rising interest rates on their debts, outflow of foreign investments and lack of credit. If the world is plunging into a global recession the result will be unemployment and with it an erosion of the rights and the standard of living of workers everywhere.  [...]
It is therefore critical that all countries have a say in the process to change the international financial architecture. No equitable and sustainable solutions to transform the current system will come out of gatherings that are rapidly-prepared and exclude many developing countries as well as civil society. Such efforts are in fact more likely to further undermine public trust and confidence, and to further disenfranchise countries that are already opting for regional solutions over a stronger, more coherent and fairer international financial system. [...]
Many difficult issues will have to be addressed and agreed upon in the transition from the current system – which has fostered instability and inequity – towards a just, sustainable and accountable one, which yields benefits for the majority of the world’s people. In such a system human rights must be the starting point and not some distant goal in the future, and a rights-based approach to development (with gender equality, decent work and human rights at its core) must be the main guiding principle. 

www.socialwatch.org 

Mercy Global Action Advocates at the UN for the Right to Water and Sanitation

As part of my ongoing consultancy for the Sisters of Mercy/Mercy International/the Mining Working Group at the UN, I wrote the article below, about the important work on the human right to water and sanitation that my colleagues have led over the past few months. Even though the Open Working Group won't end up including the language we want - including the explicit mention of the right - in its report, we're proud of our efforts and will keep working. 

In accordance with the Sisters’ of Mercy great concern with the future sustainability and availability of water for all, Mercy Global Action has focused much of our recent advocacy work at the UN on the human right to water and sanitation.

Davide Restivo. under CCO

Particularly through convening the Mining Working Group at the UN, we have been advocating for the inclusion of the human right to water and sanitation in the ongoing discussions of the Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our message to governments, UN officials, and fellow civil society organizations has consistently focused on the need for the SDGs to prioritize – for present and future generations – the human right to water for health, life, food, and culture over other demands on water resources.

Over the past few months, the Mining Working Group has made a series of oral statements in OWG meetings, submitted detailed recommendations for text amendments to subsequent iterations of the OWG draft, and written a series of advocacy letters – to the UN Secretary-General, to the co-chairs and government representatives of the Open Working Group, and to the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights. We have met with almost 30 governments at the UN, tracked their positions, and targeted several groupings of member states based on the progression of their views on water and sanitation.

Significantly, the MWG and the Blue Planet Project spearheaded a joint letter on the urgent need to protect and promote the human right to water and sanitation in the Sustainable Development Goals. This letter was sent to every UN government on June 13, and has so far been signed by more than 300 civil society organizations all over the world. 

Through Mercy Global Action, Sisters of Mercy and our partners in mission have strongly engaged in this advocacy effort, sending letters to their national governments in anticipation of the OWG meetings and signing on to the global letter writing campaign. This letter is available online, along with the list of its signatures, on the World We Want web platform.

In accordance with our universal approach to analyzing systemic, structural and root causes of poverty and injustice, in our advocacy around the OWG we call for the promotion of a hierarchy of use that places potable water and sanitation, small-scale food production, ecosystem needs and cultural use before large-scale commercial use. We insist that the SDGs must take a people-centered approach, categorically rejecting the commodification and privatization of water. In line with our consistent advocacy for a rights-based approach to natural resource management, we advocate for a human rights-based approach that explicitly names the right to water and sanitation, aligns targets to the human rights framework, and guarantees non-discrimination, accountability, and public participation in decision-making. We insist on a meaningful commitment on the human right to water and sanitation must include indicators that accurately measure safety, affordability, accessibility and acceptability of water and sanitation services from the perspectives of rights holders. Our advocacy is grounded in the experience of Sisters of Mercy and our partners in mission in their work all over the world, fighting against the poisoning and destruction of watersheds from Cajamarca to Patagonia to Newfoundland.

As the Open Working Group nears the end of its mandate and its thirteenth and final session nears, it remains to be seen whether its report will in fact include an explicit mention of the human right to water and sanitation, as we have advocated so strongly for over the past months. Either way, Mercy Global Action will continue our work at the UN setting to hold governments accountable for the commitments they have made. Moreover, we will continue to promote a sustainable and forward-looking global agenda that prioritizes people’s human rights and the protection of the environment in all regions of the world.

Read the original article on the Mercy World website here.

Recap of Pacific Partnerships to Strengthen Gender, Climate Change Response and Sustainable Development

In early June, I got to go to Fiji for a meeting on Pacific Partnerships to Strengthen Gender, Climate Change Response, and Sustainable Development (as I mentioned earlier). The meeting brought together a total of 60 participants - most of them women, most of them from the Pacific, and pretty much all of them amazing - for five days of strategizing, capacity-building, and collective planning towards the SIDS, post-2015, UNFCCC, and relevant regional processes.

here we are

The set-up of the meeting - two days CSOs, then two days CSOs with national women's machineries, followed by a high-level dinner and final day - was the best-designed of any I've been to. All of us staying in the same hotel the whole week, sharing meals, drinks, swims (not to mention the unexpected presence of the entirety of the Fijian national rugby team) built an incredible atmosphere of camaraderie and collectivity. 

me with the amazing rapporteur team - representing GIZ/SPC, Pacific Youth Council, DIVA for Equality, & SPC

The participants worked hard on two outcome documents: a civil society/social movements/Major Groups statement, and a joint outcome agreed by both the civil society and the government representatives present - the first of its kind, with strong language on climate finance, structural issues of trade and the international financial system, and gender equality as a cross-cutting regional priority. 

The statements were presented by participants at the high-level dinner and have already served as advocacy tools in the second SIDS prepcom, held the week before last in New York. 

For more on the meeting, see its Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube page (don't miss my fairly awkward recap of my presentation) and stay tuned - this important intersectional analysis, led by the Pacific itself, will continue to be taken forward in key regional and global fora. 

Pacific Partnerships on Gender, Climate Change, and Sustainable Development (why I am in Fiji)

Tomorrow we start getting ready for Pacific Partnerships on Gender, Climate Change and Sustainable Development, a five-day regional meeting bringing together civil society, women's machineries, and heads of state. Dag Hammarskjold Foundation is funding it and A and I are supporting it, but she's had to go home on a family thing so it looks like I'm about to learn a whole lot real fast.

I spent the past couple of weeks putting together background documents for the meeting:

- an overview of government positions based on the OWG and the Asia Pacific HLPF regional meeting http://bit.ly/1q4RIm5
- an in-depth document looking at the OWG Zero Draft and Member State positions, as they pertain to our meeting http://bit.ly/1pltggK 
- an in-depth document that provides an overview of the Asia Pacific HLPF regional meeting as it pertains to our meeting http://bit.ly/RUv3gm 

Sharing here in case they're useful! Follow updates from the meeting via its Facebook page, here: https://www.facebook.com/PPGCCSD 

And now off to put aloe on my sun rash and hop into bed! The 16 hour time difference is no joke. 

Tracking the Open Working Group (It's Target Time)

A few weeks ago, I attended (almost all of) the 11th session of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (OWG on SDGs). It was useful for all three of my consulting jobs - I took 102 pages of notes and highlighted them according to a color scheme: one for the Fiji meeting, one for Beirut, one for the Mining Working Group, and one for the privatization of post-2015 work I'll be doing when I get back. Then I did one tracking who said what on civil society - always good to know your allies.

Now that I'm finally finished, I figured I would share this work so that all of these hours of my life served as many purposes as possible. Also, I'll be in Fiji and Beirut for the informals and 12th meeting of the OWG (respectively) so I won't be able to contribute much around the next one... unless I decide to be really insane and watch all the webcast archives when I get back.

To read some (I hope) useful info, which I have already shared with a few civil society colleagues, please click the links below:


Positions of the Group of 77 and China (G77/China) as of OWG11

Positions of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) as of OWG11 

Positions of the African Group as of OWG11

Mentions of Civil Society during OWG11


and let me know if you want the whole 100 pages of notes. I'll sell them to the highest bidder. :)

A Rights-Based Approach to Resource Extraction in the Pursuit of Sustainable Development (my advocacy brief is finished!)

Since literally ten hours after leaving my job, I've been grateful (really, not in the #humblebrag kind of way) to be doing consulting work for the UN office of the Sisters of Mercy/Mercy International and the Mining Working Group at the UN (MWG).

As part of their ongoing work around the UN's Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (OWG on SDGs), the MWG has focused on promoting a human- and environmental-rights-based approach to sustainable development, including natural resource management and particularly extractive industries. In other words, the MWG is trying to convince governments and other players at the UN that sustainable development means focusing on people, and on communities affected by mining and other "development" efforts that prioritize making money over any (health, environmental, security) cost. During the process of figuring out the global "post-2015 sustainable development agenda," the MWG wants to remind the UN of this opportunity to prioritize the lives and realities of people whose involuntary sacrifices allowed a lot of (Northern, corporate, stock-owning) people to get rich... and to inform the UN that no, this is not "development."

The first project I've done for the MWG is an advocacy brief, which I drafted based on a longer report by a key MWG member and which was professionally laid out by a graphic designer (!). It outlines a rights-based approach to resource extraction and highlights some important pieces of the MWG's recent sustainable development-focused work. It's here: http://miningwg.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/advocacy-brief.pdf 

Maria Gunnoe, organizer on Kayford Mountain stripped of coal from top-down. Credit: OVEC (via Mining Working Group)