Club de Madrid Member Alejandro Toledo participated in this event, co-organized by the Club de Madrid and the Friederich Ebert-Stiftung. It took place at the UN headquarters in New York on the 26th of November. More pictures here
The purpose of this day of informal discussions was to bring together key participants in the relevant stakeholder groups – in civil society, the UN system and among political decision-makers – to advance the ongoing discussions on what is needed in order to move toward a new generation of development goals. The day’s discussions were divided into three panels that focussed on what is needed to:
- Determine the guiding principles and values for a joint MDG/SGD agenda,
- Examine the need for a new development paradigm and define its core concepts and main elements
- Ensure coherence in the different processes on future development goals including new goals to follow the Millenium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) according to the outcomes of Rio+20.
There was general consensus that al the different process need to be combined to develop a single set of sustainable and inclusive development goals and also support for the need for a new development agenda.
In the “Guiding Principles and Values for a Joint MDG/SDG Agenda” Panel, President Toledo reminded the session of the elements that would be needed in order to set out a set of goals as stated by the UN System Task Team in their report: “Realising the Future We Want For All” and indicated: “we have to figure out the world we want for 2050: “ We will aim for economic inclusive growth, and rights and democracy, but we also need equality and sustainability”. To this, Toledo drew out four of the basic insights which inform and underpin the post-2012 Agenda:
- We need a new development agenda.
- We need a holistic approach.
- We need inclusive shared societies in an inclusive shared world.
- We need a collegiate approach.
”If we don’t have a social inclusion perspective we will have problems in the future that will finish by undermining democracy”. Member Toledo also brought into the conversation how the Club de Madrid and the Friedrich Ebert-Stiftung, together with its third partner, the Centre for Concern in Washington, have been encouraging debate for some years on how the international system has to change to create an environment in which all countries and their inhabitants can prosper and to this end have developed the Global Shared Societies Agenda with the involvement of representatives of all intergovernmental bodies.
This event was Live streamed and you can find the video of the discussions here.
Member Alejandro Toledo, and other high-level speakers from the event took part in a luncheon convened by the Ford Foundation together with John Podesta, U.S. Representative to the UN High Level Panel on Post-2015 Development and Chair of the Center for American Progress, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and Club de Madrid. A distinguished group of representatives from major U.S. philanthropic organizations discussed the post-MDG/pre-SDG processes and the role for philanthropy in shaping positive outcomes. President Toledo spoke and Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Professor of International Development, New School University presented a reflection on the MDG process “When Global Development Goals Become Policy Tools” during the lunch.
Background
Following the Rio+20 Summit, and as the world and UN system move closer to the milestone of 2015 for realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), many discussions are underway concerning the follow up to the MDGs and their relation to the new generation of development goals that will succeed them. Simultaneous discussions have emerged about whether the world needs a new development paradigm, and if so, what sort of framework must underpin it, what aspirational goals will guide it, and what targets and indicators will be used to measure and evaluate its progress. This new framework will not be built in the same way we achieved the MDGs, which were distilled from key international agreements reached during the major development conferences of the 1990s. follow up
The current state of international agreement regarding the future of development is not yet at the point of consensus similar to that reflected in the Millennium Declaration and MDGs. Now, in addition, the field of development actors has broadened: the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, Korea, in 2011 culminated in a Partnership Agreement that—for the first time—established a framework for development co-operation that includes traditional donors, South-South co-operators, the BRICS, civil society organisations and private funders. All of these actors, as well as the G20, now have a major influence in the shaping of development post-2015.
