The high-level meeting on the post-2015 global agenda concluded today (March 27), with five key areas for reform emerging.
The 27 members of the high-level panel tasked by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to propose “an ambitious yet achievable framework” for a post-2015 global agenda, met in Bali, Indonesia, March 25-27 to draft their final agenda recommendations.
This brings to a conclusion a series of consultations, meetings and engagements with various stakeholders to promote the global ownership of the new agenda through an open, transparent and inclusive process, said the panel in a document obtained by Devex.
The vision: a transformative, people-centered and planet-sensitive development agenda that ends extreme poverty in the context of sustainable development, while enabling sustained prosperity for all.
The panel recognizes that this vision will only be achievable through defining the means of implementing the new agenda and by stimulating partnerships across all development processes.
It also advocates for coherent and mutually-enforcing post-2015 intergovernmental processes and outcomes.
The five key areas highlighted by the panel “on which progress is needed” to attain its post-2015 vision are outlined below:
1. Reshaped and revitalized global governance and partnerships. The approach to addressing today’s challenges should be universally applicable, while at the same time implementable at the national, subnational, community and individual levels. This includes ensuring that the United Nations, multilateral systems and all development actors support the post-2015 agenda effectively, using the full array of technical exchange, trade, migration, investment and other instruments to strengthen societies and protect human rights.
2. Protection of the global environment. The agenda must be grounded in a commitment to address global environmental challenges, strengthen resilience and improve disaster preparedness capacities.
3. Sustainable production and consumption. The future development framework should consider the challenge of the predicted peak of human population to 9 billion to 10 billion in 2050 and the need to manage the world’s production and consumption patterns in more sustainable and equitable ways. There should also be changed behavior in this regard in all countries, in order to make more efficient use of environmental assets and resources.
4. Strengthened means of implementation. The agenda should clearly specify the means of implementation, including financing for development. Adequate, stable and predictable financing, as well as the efficient use of resources, is required to support development. This will require honoring international, regional, and national financing commitments, enhancing domestic resource mobilization, and multiple complementary and innovative sources of finance — such as private investment, corporate social responsibility, philanthropy, North-South, South-South and triangular cooperation, public-private partnerships, debt swaps, guarantees and market mechanisms.
5. Data availability and better accountability in measuring progress. Substantial improvements in national and subnational statistical systems, including local and subnational levels and the availability, quality and timeliness of baseline data, disaggregated by sex, age, region and other variables, will be needed. This will require substantial investments in building capacity in advance of 2015. A regularly updated registry of commitments is one idea to ensure accountability and monitor delivery gaps. We must also take advantage of new technologies and access to open data for all.
In the coming weeks, the panel will be preparing the final report on post-2015 agenda recommendations, which it hopes will “promote a single and coherent post-2015 development agenda.” This report will be submitted to the U.N. secretary-general at the end of May.
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