Keeping LDCs at centre stage
Published on Tue, 2013-09-17 00:00
The ongoing Post-2015 development agenda (including the SDGs) process is still short of prioritising the special needs and challenges of the LDCs and its peoples. The MDGs, albeit minimal in scope, has a dedicated target pertaining to the LDCs under Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development. Conversely, the proposed new-generation goals in the report by the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda (HLP) dilute the due special development attention to the LDCs. A stand-alone goal targeting global development partnership for the LDCs is a non-negotiable along with a cross-cutting treatment with specific reference premised upon their special situations and vulnerabilities. The alignment and harmonisation of the Post-2015 sustainable development agenda to the IPoA, Almaty Programme of Action and Mauritius Strategy – being specific UN development plans of action for the LDCs, LLDCs, SIDS respectively – is also key for their effective implementation, monitoring and policy coherence for development. In this regard, the mid-term review of the IPoA scheduled in 2015 and the Third International Conference on SIDS scheduled in 2014 as follow- up to the Mauritius Strategy are of high relevance. Clearly, the voices of the poor, marginalised and vulnerable, are unanimously calling for a new-generation Post-2015 sustainable development agenda heralding a system change: an end to the neo-liberal paradigm of aggressive privatisation, corporatisation and financialisation that places profits before people and the planet. Reiterating the clarion call of LDC Watch advocacy; a fundamental shift to an alternative pro-people, pro-planet development paradigm based on human rights, human dignity, justice and planetary boundaries is a pre-requisite to achieving sustainable development in the real sense as opposed to mere rhetoric. The bottom line being the LDCs and its peoples constitute the bottom billion. Keeping LDCs at the centre stage of the Post-2015 sustainable development agenda is, therefore, a development imperative if we are indeed envisioning poverty eradication and sustainable development for a life of dignity for all. Download LDC Watch position paper on the post2015 sustainable development. Source: LDC Watch. |
