Addis agenda 'a sea change from Monterrey and Doha,' but still lacking

The third International Conference on Financing for Development wrapped up in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, last week with the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, which builds on the 2002 Monterrey Consensus and the 2008 Doha Declaration as well as creates a foundation for implementing the sustainable development goals that will be adopted in New York in September. “This historic agreement marks a turning point in international cooperation that will result in the necessary investments for the new and transformative sustainable development agenda that will improve the lives of people everywhere,” Wu Hongbo, secretary-general of the conference, said. The agenda, which has 100 measures covering seven action areas, “provides a global framework for financing sustainable development,” according to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. But while the Addis Ababa Action Agenda is a welcome step toward a more meaningful discussion of the SDGs, it still lacks the teeth to rein in the flows that continue to drain developing countries of revenues and resources. The establishment of an intergovernmental tax body, for example, did not happen in Addis, much to the disappointment of civil society. We caught up with Olav Kjørven, director of UNICEF’s public partnerships division, who was in Addis Ababa for #FFD3, to learn more about his role, the importance of core contributions to UNICEF’s operations and his takeaways from #FFD3. Can you tell me more about your role? What does heading UNICEF's public partnerships division entail? Our job is to strengthen UNICEF's cooperation and partnership with governments, both north and south, as well as with multilateral institutions (U.N. agencies, international financial institutions, etc). We also lead UNICEF's engagement with intergovernmental negotiations, such as the post-2015 process and FFD. We do all this with the clear purpose of advancing the rights and interests of children on the global political agenda, and mobilizing and leveraging resources for children, both through UNICEF and beyond. According to Anthony Lake, UNICEF's executive director, core contributions comprised half of the agency's total resources before 2000. But in 2014, they made up 26 percent of UNICEF's revenue. How is UNICEF adjusting to this decline in core contributions? And what's your role in helping UNICEF address this? First of all, it's a relative decline, not absolute. Core resources have grown, but not as fast as other, more earmarked contributions. However, it is extremely important for UNICEF to maintain core resources at a significant level also in relative terms, as this means we will be in a better position to meet the objectives set forth in our strategic plan. So we would like to increase the share of core resources up toward at least one-third of the total. This means we must make an even stronger case to both traditional donors and other partners, including the millions of current and potential pledge donors among regular citizens around the world, that investing in UNICEF gives strong returns for children, and we have to document those results even better. This is a big focus for me and my division. We have had a laser focus on making the case for investing in children as a key strategy for sustainable and equitable development. I am happy to say that the Addis Ababa Action Agenda contains unprecedented language to this effect, which will be a great springboard for us for the coming 15 years. Combined with strong focus on children in the SDGs, we have a great basis for advancing the rights of children. Now, this is of course also something we would like to believe will translate into stronger commitments by governments to support our work. But the main thing for us is to see more investment in children overall, more resources leveraged for children — whether or not UNICEF is a channel as such. A good chunk of UNICEF's regular resources in 2014 — 43 percent — came from the private sector. How is UNICEF working to mobilize more contributions from private sources? How does this complement your work in public partnerships? UNICEF is quite unique among U.N. agencies in its capacity to mobilize support from regular citizens around the world. This is led by a different division, but the reality is that both public and private resource mobilization works best when we find ways of coordinating and working together. So that's what we do. Political awareness about the important work that UNICEF does around the world is often boosted by strong advocacy and campaigns directed at the public at large. And UNICEF national committees in traditional donor countries can help us make the case for UNICEF vis-a-vis parliaments, where the budgets get passed. One of the side events at #FFD3 is a panel discussion on equity-focused investments in children. A UNICEF report detailed the many equity gaps in financing education — including how governments channel significantly more resources to children from better-off groups than to the poorest ones. How can equity gaps like this be avoided post-2015? This is an absolutely essential point for us. We do believe the new agenda offers a great opportunity to address this issue, which is of course a difficult one, and often politically challenging. But the SDGs have really zoomed in on tackling inequality, and of leaving nobody behind. There is strong emphasis on using disaggregated data, something which was rather overlooked with the Millennium Development Goals, which dealt in averages. We will work very hard from day one of the new agenda to support countries in coming up with policies and programs aimed at reaching the most vulnerable, the most excluded. What were your expectations for #FFD3, and were these met? Which issues, if any, do you think were not addressed well? My expectations were largely met, in several respects. First, in the way that children feature in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda. It's a sea change compared with Monterrey and Doha. Children are not seen simply as a vulnerable group and beneficiary, but as a crucial focus for achieving sustainable development, and as an active participant in their own right. This is huge. Second, the [Addis agenda] finally makes sustainable development the name of the game, also when it comes to development finance. This is also a big change from previous FFDs. The world has finally agreed that if it's not sustainable, it's not development. And finance must be mobilized, geared, steered and incentivized accordingly. Third, the [Addis agenda] is strong on the imperative of domestic resource mobilization, especially through raising tax revenues. This is very welcome and important, because today even in least-developed countries, domestic resources are more important than official development assistance. The potential here is huge. But this brings me to my main disappointment: The [Addis agenda] would have been much stronger if it had contained a decision to significantly upgrade international tax cooperation, as developing countries wanted. This could have given countries both stronger support and pressure in terms of strengthening tax policy and collection, which is fundamental for domestic resource mobilization, and for reducing illicit flows of capital and tax avoidance. Finally, the [Addis agenda] could have been stronger when it comes to cutting fossil fuel subsidies, advancing innovative finance, and putting more pressure on financial markets toward investments that do less harm and more good to people and planet. We are now a big world on a small planet. Profit maximizing only is simply not acceptable anymore. Missed major #Fin4Dev pledges and developments at the #FFD3 conference in Addis? Read the highlights from each day and reactions from civil society on major developments in our running blog.