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On June 25 and 26 June 2013, the Vienna+20 CSO Conference of more than 140 persons from various CSOs around the world gathered at Vienna on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights and its Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action issued on June 25, 1993. Social Watch was represented by Kinda Mohamadieh.

In July 2012 after the Rio+20 Conference was held, the UN Secretary General with the support of the UN agencies launched a process to discuss the Post-2015 development agenda. He commissioned to very specific stakeholders four reports that have just been delivered and will serve as an input to his report to the September 2013 General Assembly Special Event on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Post-2015 Development Agenda. The four stakeholders that prepared and submitted reports to the UN Secretary-General are the High Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda (Post-2015 HLP), the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the UN Global Compact (UNGC), and the UN Development Group (UNDG).

Empowering women. (Photo: WfC)

This report tracks the extent to which Zambia is making progress towards achieving the MDGs focuses on Goals 1 to 7 and assesses Zambia’s national development plans, the main tools for achieving economic and human development, particularly the Fifth National Development Plan (FNDP). It also analyses problems in the way the MDGs are formulated, arguing that unless these are taken care of, the human development conditions of countries such as Zambia will remain poor for a long time. Finally, it makes proposals for post 2015 reform.

At the launch of the MDGs in 2000, Zambia’s human development indicators were weak, owing to the steady deterioration of the economic and social conditions since the mid-1970s, when prices of its main produce copper fell on the world market. From the late 1980s and 1990s Zambia implemented the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund inspired Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), under which significant cuts to public expenditure were applied, considerably weakening delivery of social services in the health, education and other sectors. This period is also when the HIV and AIDS pandemic hit Zambia the hardest.

Family in Blazevo, Novi Pazar, Serbia. (Photo: UNDP)

Serbia’s lack of any long-term vision or commitment as well as any comprehensive development strategies, make it difficult to counter the negative impact of the global economic crisis and establish a solid basis for economic growth, including increased jobs and livelihoods. In this context, with weak democratic institutions and lacking the rule of law, that the MDGs are unlikely to be achieved by 2015. There is thus a strong need to change the current neoliberal economic development paradigm to one that will focus on achieving human development for all.

The latest phase of the Serbian transition to a market economy, started in 2001, was not modelled with a clear vision of achieving economic prosperity and improved livelihoods for all, but focused on the livelihoods of those with economic and political power. Due to the high level of corruption, the lack of effective economic and social policy, and the absence of long-term vision and multisectoral strategies, Serbia cannot counter the consequences of the economic crisis and establish a solid basis for economic growth, one that can increase employment, salaries, livelihoods and quality of life.