Social Watch E-Newsletter - Issue 350 - August 12, 2019

Issue 350 - August 12, 2019
 
 

Social Watch at the HLPF 2019
Spotlight report on the 2030 Agenda

   
 

VNRs and Progress Measurement Beyond the HLPF

   
 

Since 2016, 142 countries worldwide have submitted Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) as part of the UN High Level Political Forum (HLPF), reporting on progress made towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the action plan of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The VNRs play a prominent role in the annual Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) HLPF with both criticism and acclaim. However, it’s important to consider how VNRs are taking hold beyond the formal sessions in the HLPF every year.
The VNRs elucidate gaps in the global indicator framework and are appearing in discussions of UN Country Teams (UNCTs), the UN Statistical Commission and the Committee for Development Policy (CDP). Read more

 

   
   
 

Technocratic Fiddling While the Planet Burns: Towards a Higher Level of Ambition for the HLPF

   
 
Photo: Sergio Chaparro.

The 2019 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development—the global platform for reviewing progress on the SDGs—took place last week at the UN in New York, and in general terms, it was more of the same. Admirable rhetoric, but not much evidence of serious efforts at comprehensive implementation, and a host of major flaws and limitations to contend with. As CESR has observed at previous HLPFs (see 2017 and 2018), the space given to civil society is far too limited, most of the Voluntary National Reviews feel very disconnected from reality, and one leaves with the feeling that most governments are at best timidly tinkering around the edges, making minor adjustments to business-as-usual while the planet burns. Read more

 

   
   
 

Civil society reports show conflicting priorities and trade-offs in SDG implementation

   
 

Speaking at the OECD last May, Ambassador David Donoghue, former UN Co-facilitator of the 2030 Agenda, said: “Much is being emphasized about the synergies between the different SDGs, and rightly so, but not much attention is paid to the trade-offs.”
The trade-offs between different priorities competing for scarce budget resources, for the limited attention of policy-makers or the interest of the media rarely emerge in the official debates, but they are permanently highlighted by the independent reports of civil society on implementation of the 2030 Agenda ... or lack of it. Read more

 

   
   
 

Unveiling the hidden dimensions of poverty

   
 

The research report, The Hidden Dimensions of Poverty, fundamentally challenges global conceptions of the nature of poverty. This participatory research, led by ATD-Fourth World and the University of Oxford, has sought to refine the understanding and measurement of poverty by engaging with people directly experiencing poverty, practitioners and academics.
The 2030 Agenda recognizes that poverty is multidimensional. However, apart from income poverty, hitherto these dimensions have not been well-specified, several of them have gone unrecognized, and the ways in which they all interact to shape the experience of poverty has not been properly understood.
The research has involved teams in Bangladesh, Bolivia, France, Tanzania, the United Kingdom and the USA. People with direct experience of poverty, academics and practitioners, worked together as equals. Read more

 

   

 

 
SOCIAL WATCH IS AN INTERNATIONAL NGO WATCHDOG NETWORK MONITORING POVERTY ERADICATION AND GENDER EQUALITY
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