I Introduction
The report points out that “more than a billion people still live in extreme poverty” and that “far too many people face serious deprivation in health and education, with progress hampered by significant inequality related to income, gender, ethnicity, disability, age and location.” (para 6) It also stresses that the work on achieving the MDGs by the end of 2015 remains unfinished and that meeting these commitments will provide “the best possible position from which to agree upon and implement a universal agenda for sustainable development after 2015.” (para 7) The future we want, the report of Rio + 20, underscored that “poverty eradication is an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.” The Secretary-General also reiterated the phrase from the report of the High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2105 Development Agenda (HLP) that “no person anywhere should be left behind.” This is emerging as the lynchpin for the post-2015 development agenda and issues such as sexual and reproductive health and rights and gender should take it into account moving forward. (para 11)
The purpose of the report is to “galvanize greater efforts to end poverty and achieve sustainable and inclusive growth.” The regional and national consultations in over 100 countries and the World We Want 2015 platform have all contributed to this. (para 13) He also acknowledges the inputs and recommendations of the HLP, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the Global Compact Office, the UN System Task Team on the Post-2015 United Nations Development Agenda and the regional commissions, as well as civil society and academia (paras 14 & 15) There is more common ground than differences and it is possible to see the "emerging outlines for a new sustainable development agenda,” including “particular emphasis on women, young people and marginalized groups.” (para 16)
As stated by the Secretary-General, this report is one to “take stock of where we are and where we need to go” both in the time that remains to the end of 2015 and then in the period beyond. (para 17) In conclusion, he reiterates, “No one must be left behind. We must continue to build a future of justice and hope, a life of dignity for all.
II Achieving the Millennium Development Goals and accelerating progress
A Where do we stand on the Goals?
While poverty and hunger have been reduced globally and the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day fell by more than have, much of the progress has been made in a few large countries, particularly China and India. In sub-Saharan Africa, however, the number of people living in poverty is still rising. (para 23) While the number of children out of primary school declined from 102 million to 57 million, “much stronger efforts are needed to improve the quality of education and provide lifelong learning opportunities, especially for girls and women…” (para 25) The Secretary-General recognizes women and girls as “major drivers of development. Yet challenges to achieving gender equality and women’s rights remain significant. In many developing countries, girls are denied their right to primary education … Gender-based violence contravenes women’s and girls’ rights, undermines development and is an affront to our common humanity.” (para 26)
The maternal mortality rate has fallen during the past two decades by 47 per cent, although “far from the target of 75 per cent.” The Secretary-General, however, draws attention to the fact that “Intensified efforts are needed to reach the most vulnerable women and children to ensure their sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, including to basic services and sexual and reproductive education.” (para 27) The use of sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights is agreed language, originating in the ICPD Programme of Action, and is appropriate in this context insofar as the Secretary-General is looking back on progress made. It does, however, go beyond the wording of MDG Target 5B which only refers to access to reproductive health. The reference to sexual and reproductive education is curious, as it is not generally used.
While there has been a 21 per cent decline in the number of new HIV infection and close to 10 million people living with HIV are receiving antiretroviral treatment, there are still 2.5 million new infections annually. Meanwhile deaths from malaria have fallen 25 per cent in the past decade and 51 million people have been treated successfully between 1995 and 2011. (para 28)
B Which policies and programmes have best driven progress?
In emphasizing inclusive growth, decent employment and social protection, the report notes that programmes that combine increased food production, microfinance, nutrition education schemes have had a positive impact on maternal health as well as child mortality in Latin America and South-East Asia. (para 38) At the same time allocating more resources for essential services and ensuring access for all has contributed in some countries to expanding access to primary education while simultaneously tacking gender disparities. The report also states that “if entrenched gender disadvantages can be overcome, particularly in countries where early marriage remains pervasive” the parity target by 2015 is within reach. (It also notes that to accelerate progress in preventing maternal and child mortality, countries in sub-Saharan Africa have launched midwifery schemes for the training and deployment of “tens of thousands of front-line health workers.” (paras 41 & 42) In addition child mortality has been reduced through policies that support “free universal access to quality primary health care”. (para 45) For strengthening political will and improving the international policy environment, the report calls for a stronger partnership “among governments, pharmaceutical companies, research facilities and philanthropic organizations to make essential medicines more affordable and available in public facilities…” (para 49)
C Accelerating progress towards the Goals to 2015
While asserting that fulfilling existing commitments to the MDGs “must remain the foremost priority”, the Secretary-General states that there is a need to focus on the most off-track Goals together with countries that face particular development challenges with particular attention being paid to the most vulnerable and excluded, including women. (paras 54 & 55) He refers particularly to the Millennium Development Goals Acceleration Framework. (http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview/mdg_goals/acceleration_framework/) In one country in sub-Saharan African country, for example, “an acceleration plan on maternal health is being implemented through the revised national reproductive health policy and protocol”, using for example mobile phones for diagnosis and referral and local road transport as transport for women in labour. (para 58 & 59)
The Secretary General is also putting forward a proposal to Member States for a new United Nations Partnership Facility, aimed “to enhance the Organization’s ability to facilitate delivery at scale at both the global and country levels.” (para 69)
III Advancing the United Nations development agenda beyond 2015
A Vision and transformative actions of the agenda
The Secretary-General using “an inclusive and transparent process to hear from all stakeholders” through the United Nations Development Group and others has held consultations in nearly 100 countries, the global thematic consultations on 11 issue areas and the My World global online survey, which have reached more than a million speakers and a large number of civil society organizations and academic institutions. (para 76)
As indicated in the introduction, the reports of the HLP, the SDSN and the Global Compact, the UN Systems Task Team and the regional commissions all contributed to the Report. The Secretary-General also notes that the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals is also “conducting a series of discussions aimed at formulating goals for sustainable development to be proposed to the General Assembly at its sixty-eight session.” The common ground in the findings of these processes is encouraging and the importance of “arriving at a single and coherent development agenda centred on sustainable development, applicable to all countries while taking into account regional, national and local circumstances and priorities” is emphasized. The key elements for the post-2015 development agenda should be: universality; sustainable development; inclusive economic transformation; peace and governance; a new global partnership; and being ‘for for purpose’. In order to bring this vision to life a number of “transformative mutually reinforcing actions” are required. (paras 77 – 81)
To achieve this it will be necessary to take “a number of transformative and mutually reinforcing actions that apply to all countries.” (para 82) These include measures to eradicate poverty in all its forms and tackle exclusion and inequality, in order to leave no one behind. (para 83 & 84)
Actions should be included to empower women and girls, including “zero tolerance for violence against or exploitation of women and girls” and the ending of child marriage. At the same time they should have access to services including “the full range of health services including in the area of sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights.” (para 85) Steps should also be taken to provide quality education and lifelong learning. In this context the Secretary-General specifies “life skills” which can be interpreted to include comprehensive sexuality education. (para 86)
The Secretary-General also calls for measures to improve health that “address universal health-care coverage, access and affordability; end preventable maternal and child deaths; realize women’s reproductive rights; increase immunization coverage; [and] eradicate malaria and realize the vision od a future free of AIDS and tuberculosis…" (para 87) Furthermore they should address climate change; address environmental challenges; promote inclusive and sustainable growth and decent employment; [and] end hunger and malnutrition. (paras 87 – 91)
The Secretary-General also refers to various aspects of population dynamics such as to address demographic challenges, recognizing that “countries with a high rate of population growth are generally on a path of falling fertility, especially as education for girls and sexual and reproductive health services become more widely available…[which] would enable many households to slow fertility rates, with consequent benefits for health, education, sustainability and the demographic dividend for economic growth.” Where there is a high proportion of young people there is a need to offer education and opportunities for decent work and where there are ageing populations the elderly should be supported and barriers removed to their full participation in society. Furthermore they should enhance the positive contribution of migrants, addressing both international and domestic migration. Among the problems experienced are discrimination and the denial of human rights. Human trafficking is unacceptable and should be ended. To meet the challenges of urbanization requires providing city dwellers with employment, housing and all the necessary services, although living in cities can mean more efficient delivery and use of physical facilities and amenities. Sustainable urbanization and economic transformation also includes rural prosperity and economic transformation. (paras 92 – 94)
To foster a renewed global partnership, envisaged in MDG 8, as stated by the HLP the partnership should capture, and will depend on, a spirit of mutual respect and mutual benefit. (para 96) The transformative actions of the post-2015 development agenda should also be supported by multi-stakeholder partnerships that respond to the sustainable development agenda. (para 98) Official development assistance will remain, and can also be used for leveraging other finance for the least developed countries, landlocked developing countries, small island developing States, many countries in Africa and those emerging from conflict and disasters. (para 99) The Secretary-General welcomes the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing “which will propose options on a strategy to facilitate the mobilization of resources and their effective use.” (para 103)
As a measure to strengthen the international development cooperation framework, the Secretary-General welcomes the mandate, organizational structure etc of the high-level political forum on sustainable development, noting that there is broad agreement that the forum should bring political support at the highest level to the coordination, coherence, implementation and monitoring of the commitments in a universal development agenda. (para 104)
B Comprehensive monitoring framework and robust accountability mechanisms
The report emphasizes the “urgent need to further improve data collection, dissemination and analysis... The post-2015 development agenda will involve measuring a broader range of indicators, requiring new and disaggregated data to capture gaps within and between population groups.” Targets, as suggested by the HLP, will only be achieved when they are met by “all relevant income and social groups.” (para 106)
C Setting goals for the agenda
As agreed at Rio + 20, the sustainable development goals “should be coherent with and integrated into the United Nations development agenda beyond 2015.” The HLP, the SDSN and the Global Compact, moreover, have all proposed illustrative goals and targets, in their reports. Cross-cutting issues “such as gender, disability, age and other factors leading to inequality, human rights, demographics, migration and partnerships” should be taken into account in the goals and targets. Meanwhile the “new goals should embrace the emphasis on human well-being and the use of metrics that go beyond standard income measures, such as surveys of subjective well-being and happiness…” (paras 109 – 111).
D Towards the formulation and launch of the agenda
As stated in the report, the special event on 25 September will provide an opportunity to “reflect on the broad contours of the development agenda beyond 2015." Member States in the outcome document from the event could “issue a call for convening a United Nations summit in 2015" to adopt the new development agenda. The General Assembly could ask the President “to hold consultations on a procedural resolution for initiating preparations for the summit, in which it could request the Secretary-General to prepare a report on the modalities, format and organization for submission to the Assembly by March 2014.” The General Assembly could launch the final phase of the intergovernmental consultations on the post-2015 development agenda at its sixty-ninth session. (paras 112 – 114)
IV Recommendations
The Secretary-General calls on all Member States etc to take “every step possible” to achieve the MDGs, while recognizing that some goals may not be met and that others may only meet part of the challenge. The post-2015 development agenda, therefore, will need to complete the MDGs and scale up their success… Member States should “adopt a universal post-2015 development agenda, with sustainable development at its core.” The objectives of sustainable development are “[p]overty eradication, inclusive growth targeting inequality, protecting and managing the natural resource base of our planet within a rights-based framework and cognizant of the nexus between peace and development.” He welcomes the establishment of the high-level political forum and encourages Member States “to provide clarity on the road map to 2015”, suggesting that they could be supported by a report from the Secretary-General during the sixty-ninth session of the General Assembly. This would draw on the outcomes of the Open Working Group, the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing and other bodies. (paras 115-118)
V Conclusion
The Secretary-General concludes that defining the post-2015 development agenda is “a daunting yet inspiring and historic task” both for the United Nations and its Member States and that in doing so the peoples of the world must be listened to and involved. They have “heard their calls for peace and justice, eradicating poverty, realizing rights, eliminating inequality, enhancing accountability and preserving our planet.” In conclusion, he reiterates, “No one must be left behind. We must continue to build a future of justice and hope, a life of dignity for all.” (paras 119 & 120)