Reminder – 6 April closing date for applications civil society speakers or selection committee

UN PGA's 4 May Debate on Strengthening Cooperation between UN & Regional & Subregional Organizations

You are reminded that 6 April is the closing date for applications for civil society speakers or selection committee for the UN President of the General Assembly’s 4 March 2015, High Level Thematic Dbate on Strengthening Cooperation between the UN and Regional and Subregional Organizations:

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Intergovernmental negotiations on Post-2015 – Day 5: April session and coordination with FfD and closing session

Ambassador Kamau introduced the proposal for the joint session for Financing for Development (FfD) and Post 2015 development agenda. The work of the FfD track in Addis in July must be a success, which means that its outcomes should be consistent with this process’s expectations and fit into its agenda. They must not be duplicative, as they are distinctly different with different timelines. The programme for the intergovernmental negotiations, 20-24th April with FfD was scheduled for the previous week. Their expectation and hope is that participants in the FfD will stay over the weekend and join the intergovernmental negotiations session. The Co-facilitators have had conversations with the co-facilitators Ambassadors from Guyana and Norway and are of the opinion they are all on the same page of moving forward.

The Co-facilitators need to hear from member states as to what they should focus on substantively at the next session. The zero draft of the FfD document has already been released. (See: Zero draft for Financing for Development Addis Ababa conference)  They also need to hear the views of Member States on the means of implementation (MOI) that have been conflated with FfD. It will be important to decide on the organization of work, based on the 4-day programme provided. In addition the Co-facilitators have received request from the President of ECOSOC to facilitate the participation of members of this Group in the ECOSOC/Bretton Woods system meeting on the 20 & 21 April. Monday therefore should be used for joint consultations/conversations with the meeting beginning on Tuesday, lasting for four, not five days. 

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Extension of deadlines to apply for stakeholder Steering Committee

As part of the process to define the post-2015 development agenda, the UN President of the General Assembly will organize two full days of hearings for stakeholders to participate in informal interactive dialogue with Member States on 26-27 May at UN Headquarters in New York. By request of the Office of the President of the General Assembly, UN-NGLS will facilitate a stakeholder Steering Committee for the hearings.     

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Call for participation: Asia Pacific Civil Society Forum on Sustainable Development

Information is now available to apply to participate in the Asia Pacific Civil Society Forum on Sustainable Development, 17-18 May and the Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development 21-22 May. Both meetings will be held in Bangkok, Thailand. The background documents / agenda are being posted, as they become available, on the ESCAP website.

Youth Leadership Working Group statement in Interactive Session of Intergovernmental Negotiations

The following statement was made by Lara Cousins, speaking on behalf of the Youth Leadership Working Group, from the floor during the Interactive Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiations on Post-2015 Development Agenda:

We very much welcome today’s emphasis from various speakers and Member States on disaggregating data, in order to ensure that the human rights and specific needs of young people are integrated across the agenda, and that adolescents and young people are consistently visible. 

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Intergovernmental Negotiations on Post-2015 – Day 4: Sustainable development goals targets (continued)

(based on report by Lara Cousins, Youth Leadership Working Group (YLWG) & Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights)

Following further statements on the goals and targets, Co-facilitator, Ambassador David Donoghue, summed up the discussions by saying that he and his Co-facilitator, Ambassador Kamau, would revisit the proposed 19 targets document and would share the next version with the membership at the earliest opportunity. He sensed that there was some degree of consensus on filling in of ‘x’s. The Co-facilitators will carefully review the proposals made by Member States and provide a fuller rationale for draft documents in the future. Ultimately, the membership decides on proposals that are put forward.

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Intergovernmental Negotiations on Post-2015 – Day 4: Sustainable development goals & targets (continued)

(based on report by Ida Klockmann, Sex og Samfund, Denmark)

Process going forward

The discussions in this session continued the discussion of the sustainable development goals and targets. Ambassador Kamau said that the Co-facilitators expected to have feedback from Member States on the goals and targets before the conclusion of the meeting the following day. They will then work with the comments to see whether they can improve their document to the satisfaction of Member States. 

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UN President of General Assembly's 4 May 2015, High-level Thematic Debate on Strengthening Cooperation between the UN and Regional and Subregional Organizations: Apply for civil society speaking roles or selection committee

At the request of the Office of the President of the UN General Assembly, UN-NGLS is facilitating a nomination process to identify 2 civil society speakers for the President's High-level Thematic Debate on Strengthening Cooperation between the UN and Regional and Subregional Organizations, taking place on 4 May 2015 at UN Headquarters. The concept note for the event is available here: http://bit.ly/PGA-Strengthening-Cooperation-Concept-Note

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Deadlines for civil society speaking and steering committee opportunities

As UN DESA and UN-NGLS are frequently notifying us of opportunities for civil society membership of steering committees and speaking opportunities with short deadlines, we are listing these in the attached document under the Post-2015 Calendar drop down menu.

Updated 29/April/2015

Intergovernmental Negotiations on Post-2015 – Day 3, Sessions 4 & 5: Interactive discussions and Sustainable development goals & targets

Summing up by Co-facilitator 

At the end of the interactive session, on which three of the civil society inventions have already been posted, Ambassador Kamau gave a summary of the session. He spoke about the “sense of urgency” and the need to “get on with the business,” in order to ensure that the post-2015 development would be ready for the Heads of State Summit in September. As he said, the focus should be on what is possible and we should appreciate fully the significance of what we have been able to do. He challenged everyone to find a historical precedence for what has already been done. To emphasize the point he quoted two Kiswahili sayings: “Too much greed is for the hyenas” and “He who wants everything, loses everything.” He also reminded everyone that without civil society involvement, Governments will not be able to do anything, as civil society is “of the people, and for the people.”  

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