ISPE EAG
INTERATIONAL
SOCIETY FOR POVERTY ELIMINATION ECONOMIC
ALLIANCE GROUP
Briefing # 9: Achieving AAAA and SDG Vision and Words with Action Ambition
– How to Design and Deliver Roadmap to Paris for Development Results?
Global Call to World Leaders, Representatives of 193 UN Member States, 9
Major Groups, other CSOs’ and other Stakeholders.
By Lanre Rotimi and Peter Orawgu. 4 October 2015
On
25 September 2015 World Leaders at the 70th UNGA adopted the SDG (Sustainable Development
Goals) outcome document, “Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development”. The UN Sustainable Development Summit, UNSDS, New
York, 25 – 27 September 2015 went on to discuss SDG What, Why and How
questions.
Many good ideas and pertinent
suggestions were generated in New York and Online at UNSDS 2015 and World
Leaders meetings at UN Headquarters in September 2015, that need to be
harvested and processed into UNSDS 2015 and World Leaders UN Headquarters
meetings September 2015 Outcome Document with clear recommendations on How to
Implement and Evaluate Implementation of each Action Agenda Item in each of the
17 SDGs as well as How to Implement and Evaluate Implementation of each Action
Agenda Item in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, AAAA.
UNSDS 2015 and World Leaders
meetings at UN Headquarters in September 2015 records show that World Leaders
and other participants worked hard on answer to AAAA and SDG what and Why
questions but avoided or evaded answer to AAAA and SDG How questions. This is a
puzzle given the fact that at least One Stakeholder through Online Submission
urged World Leaders and other participants to tackle AAAA and SDG How questions
and made suggestions to set the ball rolling.
An even bigger puzzle is the fact
that many World Leaders and other participants called for Business Unusual
Approach to implementing SDG and AAAA and warned of consequences of failure to
achieve AAAA and SDG Vision Ambitions by 2030 in all 193 Member States but
refuse to address answer to AAAA and SDG How questions; and that World Leaders
were unanimous in making Promise to achieve SDG by 2030 but continue language
and commitment to flawed and failed Sustainable Development Solutions.
It is clear that unless World
Leaders, UN Family Organization (including WBG and IMF) Executives and their
Partners in 193 Member States Jointly move away from Talking and Thinking and
move towards Action and Accomplishment; Jointly develop Architecture to Measure
AAAA and SDG Policy, Program, Project Intervention, 3PI and 3PI Training as One
Progress, Pinpoint Gaps and Fill Gaps on time in each AAAA and SDG Action
Agenda item; Jointly improve Coordination, Collaboration and Cooperation and
Jointly Change Mindset and Behavior of all Village to Global Stakeholders - the
probability is low that World Leaders will deliver on the SDG promise they have
freely made.
Should this failure occur in
reality, the ultimate consequences for Citizens in each of the 193 Member
States, particularly the over 2 Billion poor living on less that US$ 2 per day
and the over 4 Billion Poor living on less than US$ 5 per day could be
catastrophic.
The Big Question World Leaders and World Parliamentarians - IPU Members
need to answer now that SDG has been endorsed is: Why the rush to endorse SDG
that is impotent to address European Crisis, Africa Crisis, US Crisis and
Crisis in other parts of our World as is today? Why endorse SDG before UNSDS
2015 Outcome? Why is UNSDS 2015 Outcome likely to be impotent in the Design of
Practical Solutions to real and complex World Sustainable Development problems
on the ground at sub-national, national, sub-regional, regional and global
levels as well as National Sustainable Development problems on the ground at
sub-national, national, sub-regional, regional and global levels in each of the
193 UN Member States? And Why is UNSDS 2015 Outcome likely to fail to Deliver
Development Impact and Development Effectiveness on Sustainable and Successful
basis required to support each of the 193 Member States to achieve SDG by 2030?
Addis did not answer AAAA and SDG
How questions; New York did not answer AAAA and SDG How questions; if Paris is
to answer AAAA and SDG How questions, that is succeed where Addis and New York
have failed, the Roadmap to Paris needs to be Designed and Delivered for
Development Results. Let us consider How World Leaders could achieve this feat in Global Interest as well
as in their respective Country’s enlightened Self Interest:
According to Martin Kirk, Jason Hickel & Joe Brewer “The
world’s most powerful governments and international institutions are working
hard right now to convince us that global poverty has been cut in half since
the 90’s. More and more analysts, though, are pointing out that this claim is little more than an accounting trick:
UN officials have massaged the numbers
to make it seem as though poverty has
been reduced, when in fact it has increased”.
They have come up with data showing that 4.1 Billion people
are living in Poverty (60% of World Population) and 2 Billion People are going
hungry (35% of World Population). According to the trio “What this means is
that the bulk of the well-meaning development projects that have been rolled
out in the Global South over the past 65 years—costing hundreds of billions of
dollars—have had very little positive impact on poverty numbers (with a net
negative effect when ecological degradation is added to the equation)”. This
coincides with Scorecard for first 50 years of International Development Cooperation
(1960 – 2009) and first 6 years of the second 50 years of International
Development Cooperation (2010 – 2059) set out in earlier Policy Briefings.
To answer the question “How has this happened?” they have
identified 3 severe and monumental design flaws that current preferred Development
Model suffers from:-
1. How the development industry defines the problem itself.
2. A built-in blindness to power dynamics.
3. How the development industry articulates its language. The
trio assert that every designer worth their salt knows that metaphors
matter—they activate deep frameworks that guide the way users respond. Get the
wrong metaphors, and design won’t work, plain and simple.
Can answer to AAAA and SDG How questions that effectively
convert AAAA and SDG into Vision and Words with Action be found without
addressing these three flaws? Do the good ideas and pertinent suggestions set
out in Policy Briefings #1 - #8 not support World Leaders, UN Family
Organization Executives and Partners in each of 193 Member States to jointly
address these flaws?
Multi
Stakeholder Platforms, MSPs: Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development
Many analysts have submitted the proof that the “Global
Goals” is the right approach to World Sustainable Development will be in its
implementation. They have asked “Will the policy makers and other
powerful actors take an integrated,
coherent approach across the SDGs? Or will they – as has been argued
happened for the MDGs – implement them
as if they are separate problems in separate boxes requiring different sets of
actions?”
The view of the analysts is that tremendous possibility of
taking an integrated approach, to
the SDGs suggests that the most important aspect of the SDGs is a little phrase
hidden away in Goal 17 on Strengthening Means of Implementation. It is Target
17.14: “Enhance policy coherence for
sustainable development.” In other words: accept the reality that everything is connected with everything else
and figure out how to solve problems from there. Far better that than try
to fix problems, on their own and then wonder why, they are so hard to fix. The
implication is that:-
1.
Get Target 17.14
Right; Get Goal 17 Right and Get Goal 17 Right, Get all 17 Goals in the SDGs
Right.
2.
The implementation
as well as the Monitoring and Evaluation of the Implementation of each AAAA and
SDG Action Agenda Item Demand Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development at
several Multi Stakeholder Platforms levels
3.
The Scope of
Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development Agenda has expanded in many ways
and concerns all 193 Member States regardless of their level of National
Development
4.
New Policy
Coherence for Sustainable Development Principles, Instruments / Tools
corresponding to each Principle, Practices and Database within One Worldwide
Approach to Sustainable Development are needed to effectively take into account
today’s more complex Policy, program, Project Interventions Inter-linkages,
interconnectivity and interdependence from Village to Global levels in each of
the 193 Member States
5.
The Application of
Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development should Integrate Poverty
Elimination, Environmental Sustainability, Development Resources (Influence,
Science, Technology, Innovation, Funding, Manpower, Spiritual, Land and Water)
and Development Communication in the work towards achieving AAAA and SDG Vision
and Words with Action Agenda in each Community in each Local Government in each
of the 193 Member States applicable to the specific location context.
6.
The Application of
Policy Coherence for sustainable Development should bring Measuring Progress,
Pinpointing Gaps and Filling all identified Gaps on time to the forefront in
the National and International Development Agenda of each Government in each of
the 193 Member States
7.
The Application of
Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development should Strengthen the Capacity of
each Government in each of the 193 Member States to more effectively address
real and complex Sub-national, National, Sub-regional, Regional and Global
Development Cooperation Challenges they are grappling with in ways that
meaningfully promote and protect the Common Interest and Common Future of
Citizens in all 193 Member States.
Innovations for AAAA and SDG
Sustainable Solutions
The World Leaders
adoption of the SDG on 25 September 2015 marks the beginning of a new Global
Agenda. The new agenda will determine the health and well-being of millions of
children and their families for in the next 15 years. It is expected that
finally (hopefully) a binding agreement on climate change in Paris in December
2015 to drive the Environmental Sustainability Dimension of the SDGs’ will be
negotiated. Now that the SDGs have been adopted by World Leaders, attention is shifting from what the goals are to how we’re going to achieve and pay for
them. Should this all important How question not have been answered before
World Leaders endorsed SDG? In endorsing SDG before seeking answer to How
questions have World Leaders not put the cart before the horse?
We now have AAAA
and SDG that is each Vision and Words without Action. However, effort is being
made to convert these into AAAA and SDG that is each Vision and Words with
Action through finding, fully implementing and effectively monitoring and
evaluating the implementation of practical, purposeful and sustainable
solutions to AAAA and SDG How questions.
To
make good on promises World Leaders have made towards delivery on AAAA and SDG,
innovation will be crucial. In particular, National and Global Stakeholders in
each of the 193 Member States need health innovations for preventive health and
curative health; agriculture innovation for ending hunger and ending
malnutrition; education innovation for learning organization and learning
society and enterprise innovation for community development and sustainable
livelihoods etc - sustainable solutions as affordable and accessible as they
are safe and effective.
In the coming years, we’ll also need to see change in how
AAAA and SDG Stakeholders choose and finance innovations in each of the AAAA
and SDG Action Agenda Items, particularly the four highlighted above. As the
economies of low- to middle-income countries grow and graduate from aid, those
countries will need to decide which innovations to introduce, based on which
have the greatest potential to impact health, agriculture, education,
enterprise and other AAAA and SDG sectors / components / dimensions and what
they can afford with domestic resources.
We also expect private funding from
social impact investors, philanthropists, and others to play a larger role in
financing innovations in each of the AAAA and SDG Action Agenda Items,
alongside traditional donors like the US and UK governments. Increasingly, as
this complex mix of decision-makers and investors confront today’s silo
approach to global and national: health funding, agriculture funding, education
funding, enterprise funding etc they will need new tools and platforms to find
and accelerate game-changing solutions.
For example Platforms for senior policymakers who have the
means to pave solid regulatory foundations, investors who care deeply
about long-term change and impact, and industry leaders who are able
to deploy quickly and at scale. The physical gathering will serve as
a catalyst for a longer-term, locally-led and globally-supported
effort to activate the world’s most forward thinking technologists,
scientists, & engineers etc and to convene the resources and talent to
apply their work in addressing all AAAA and SDG Action Agenda Items. The
Platform will also address fundamental Innovation issues such as Development Analysis, Economic Viability Analysis, Financial
Viability Analysis, Risk Assessment, Financial Monitoring Assessment etc
Our study finding
is that tantalizing possibilities occur when we break down the silos that
separate sectors, borders, and disciplines, and align our collective expertise
and resources. There are several important strategies for harnessing the power
of innovation to save and improve lives that could emerge from this
collaborative effort, called Innovation
for Sustainable Solutions to achieve AAAA and SDG Vision Ambitions by 2030.
These strategies have relevance for anyone looking to help achieve the next set
of global goals, whether in health, education, enterprise, agriculture, energy,
climate, or other areas:-
1.
Identify and Attract Innovation Wherever
it Occurs - World-class
innovation is happening across the globe, and our World has never been
better-positioned to find and amplify smart ideas, regardless of where they
come from in our World today. There is a need to establish new Multi
Stakeholder Platforms, MSPs’ speaking 6 UN languages to identify, evaluate, and
showcase high-impact global health, education, enterprise, agriculture, energy,
climate or other technologies and interventions and highlighting all of them
for potential investors using new visualization technology. The MSPs’ should
promote and protect rising interest in assessing and prioritizing innovative
solutions that can deliver the greatest impact in health, education,
enterprise, agriculture, energy, climate and other sectors to the greatest
number of Citizens at National and Global levels.
2.
Assess and Nurture Innovations that Delivers
the most Fitness for Purpose and Value for Money and Democratize Access to
Sophisticated Evaluation of Innovation - Finding promising innovations is
only part of the solution. A clear and rigorous framework to analyze innovation
and gauge the best value for money as well as fitness for purpose will help
low- and middle-income countries, as well as innovation investors more
accurately assess social and financial returns. Many different Groups are
tackling this issue: The proposed MSPs’ should help improve Coordination,
Collaboration and Cooperation among these different Groups and in ways that
better help in bringing together public and private investors to finance
investments in each of the 193 Member States.
3.
Resources and Support
Services for AAAA and SDG Innovation – Heads of Government in each of the
193 Member States, UN Family Organization Executives and Partners – State
Actors and Non State Actors : National and International, must leverage
and coordinate Resources – Influence, Science, Technology, Innovation, Manpower,
Funding, Spiritual, Land and Water in general and in particular new sources of
funding—including social impact investors, country governments, and venture
capitalists—if World Leaders are to ensure investments are made to bring ideas
all the way to the market. For global health, education, enterprise,
agriculture, energy, climate and other sectors blended finance—strategic mixing
of public, private, and social impact sources—will include National and
International: Public Sector and Private Sector Grant Funding, Loan Funding and
Equity Funding.
It
is through creating new channels for collaboration, coordination, cooperation,
new strategies for investment within a One Worldwide approach to AAAA and SDG
Innovation that ensure the greatest value for money and fitness for purpose,
that we can accelerate the innovation cycle in each AAAA and SDG Action Agenda
item and in ways that promote and protect developing and scaling up the most
promising solutions to reach the millions / billions of people still waiting to
share in the gains of progress.
Global Nutrition Report 2015 and
achieving SDG by 2030
How seriously the
world takes the Global Nutrition Report 2015 and its ten Calls to Action will
either make or break the achievement of most of the 17 Sustainable Development
Goals. Why? Because the
way the world responds to malnutrition will increasingly influence progress on
poverty, health, education, gender equity, water, energy, economic growth,
inequality, urban development, ecosystems and, of course, climate change. This
underlines point made earlier on Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development.
The Report, launched in New York to a
packed audience of 200 during the 70th UNGA September 2015, finds that all 193 countries have a serious
malnutrition problem, with nearly half facing multiple serious burdens of
malnutrition such as poor child growth, micronutrient deficiency, and adult
overweight. This means fighting malnutrition should enter the job descriptions
of the leaders of all governments, development agencies, non-government
organizations, and any group with an economic and human development mandate.
Another knockdown finding - 1 in 3 people worldwide are malnourished. This
means that every individual in the world is either malnourished, or has a
family member or close friend who is. We need nothing short of peoples’
movements to address the global malnutrition epidemic. Recall the sexual
revolution and think nutrition revolution.
Our Study finding is that Nutrition
Revolution cannot stand alone but need to be an Integral Part of other Secondary Revolutions – Education
Revolution, Health Revolution, Housing Revolution etc that are in turn Integral
Part of Agriculture Revolution and other Primary revolutions – Enterprise
Revolution, Government Revolution, Applied Research Revolution, Attitudinal and
Behavioural Change Revolution, Data Revolution etc
Africa Nations Progress To Achieving
MDGs – Are Lessons Learnt Progressing to SDGs’?
Why did most African nations make
progress in some, but failed to reach their targets in most others? As the MDG
come to an end in December 2015 and the SDG start in January 2016, there is a
need for frank and truthful answer to this important question if each of the 54
African Countries is to make up lost ground to achieve MDG and accelerate to
achieve SDG by Target date of 2030.
A new study, titled “Assessing Progress
in Africa Toward the Millennium Development Goals”, points out that poor
implementation mechanisms and excessive reliance on development aid undermined
the economic sustainability of several of the eight MDGs, including the
elimination or reduction of extreme poverty and hunger. The report, produced
jointly by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the African Union (AU),
the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP),
says: “Having made encouraging progress on MDGs, African countries have the
opportunity to use the newly launched Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to
tackle remaining challenges and achieve a development breakthrough.”
The 17 SDGs, adopted at a summit meeting
of world leaders in September 2015, targets the year 2030 for the total
elimination of poverty and hunger worldwide. With official development
assistance (ODA) to Africa projected to remain low over the period 2015-2018,
at an average of around 47 billion dollars annually, the focus should be on
boosting and diversifying economies, mobilizing domestic resources and new
partners, unleashing the economic potential of women and fighting illicit
financial flows, says the report.
Asked about the slow progress made by
African nations in implementing the MDGs, Abdoulaye Mar Dieye, Director of
UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Africa, said lack of adequate financial resources
has been one of the biggest constraints in meeting the MDGs. It is not the only
constraint; neither is it the most important constraint.
The correct answer to AAAA and SDG How
questions needs to correctly identify all root problems why each African
Country did not achieve MDG by 2015 and come up with practical and sustainable
solutions to these root problems and in ways that ensure each Africa Country
meets all MDG targets as soon as possible and accelerate to meet all SDG
targets on schedule date in 2030. With the current AAAA and SDG it does not
appear that World Leaders and African Leaders have learnt any lessons from the
MDG in the design of AAAA and SDG. This flaw needs to be corrected without
delay.
Are African Leaders and World Leaders
serious about finding this type of answers to AAAA and SDG How questions? Can
any other type of answers to AAAA and SDG How questions or no answer to AAAA
and SDG How questions, as is currently the case even after UNSDS 2015, support
each African Country to catch up on the MDG
and press forward to achieve SDG on schedule date in 2030?
And ODA seems to be reaching a plateau,
he said. “Therefore, there is a need for countries to make concerted efforts to
mobilize domestic resources, build up financial infrastructure, and ensure
appropriate regulatory measures and institutions are put in place.” Still, he
pointed out, mobilizing resources is not enough; this must be accompanied by
appropriate policies for effective utilization of the resources for the purpose
intended. He also said: “We must design strategies for overcoming the funding
challenge. ODA should serve as a catalyst”.
The import of Mr Dieye’s
comment is that African Leaders and World Leaders need to Jointly address fundamental issues of Trade, Aid,
Debts and Corruption through joint focus on Diplomacy, Development, Defense, Security, Politics,
Business, Philanthropy, Religion, Communication and Advocacy within One
Worldwide Approach / Methodology; One Worldwide Evaluation; One Worldwide
Competences; One Worldwide Programming etc guarded and guided by:-
1.
High Level Leadership Personal and Official Commitment
2.
Common Stakeholder Language and Definitions
3.
OH2A2T2LRP – Ownership, Harmony, Alignment, Accountability,
Transparency, Transformation, Leadership, Learning, Results and Participation
4.
Eliminating Duplication and Fragmentation
5.
Inclusion and Regeneration
6.
Clarify Roles – Duties, Responsibilities and Rights
7.
Agree Sanctions and Enforcement Mechanism
8.
Agree Reward and Celebration Mechanism
9.
Maintain Clear Focus on Development Results and Development
Impact
10. Measure, Monitor and Evaluate
Progress towards achieving Goals and Targets
11. Mobilize required Resources (see
definition above) and use prudently and productively.
12. Build required Capacity (see
definition) and ensure match between Capacity and Scope of Work.
Africa and the World can overcome
Hunger and Poverty by 2030
Over three quarters of the extreme poor in Africa and
the World live in the Rural Areas. Reducing rural poverty will therefore
require significantly higher rural incomes. Since most rural incomes are
related to agriculture, raising agricultural productivity can help raise rural
incomes all round.
In the 1960s and 1970s, many governments
invested a great deal to increase agricultural, especially food production. In
the second half of the 20th century, agricultural productivity rose rapidly.
However, intense price competition meant that productive resource suppliers and
consumers benefitted more from productivity gains. Lower food prices thus
helped reduce poverty while transnational agri-business has profited greatly
from changes in agricultural production, credit, processing and marketing
chains. In the last decade, food prices went up again as production rose more
slowly than before, partly due to greater land and other resource constraints,
reduced public investments as well as increased demand for food crops,
including for bio-fuels and more animal feed.
Food price increases from a decade ago
have been associated not only with significant supply and demand changes, but
also with biofuel mandates and subsidies as well as greater commodity
speculative investments. But with food prices receding again more recently,
food would become cheaper, reducing farmer incomes and the incentive to produce
more food.
Poor countries are doubly handicapped by
their limited tax capacities, due to low tax rates on low incomes. While
agricultural taxation is generally proportional to land cultivated or output,
much government rural or agricultural spending has benefited plantations and
larger farmers more than smaller smallholders, tenants or sharecroppers.
Nevertheless, the poor may have benefited in so far as greater output lifts all
boats. While there is little excessive taxation of small farmers these days,
there are also modest urban-to-rural resource transfers through the fiscal
system or other transfer arrangements.
However, with a few notable exceptions,
most government spending on agriculture is not biased to the poor. Government
spending in rural areas and on agriculture has generally been motivated by
political considerations, especially the desire to secure rural political
support, not least by raising agricultural output, productivity and incomes.
Instead, such public expenditure tends to benefit the relatively better-off in
agriculture. This is generally true with improved rural infrastructure or
social services, including health and schooling, as well as agricultural
support in the form of subsidized fertilizer or other agricultural inputs –
usually distributed according to the amount of land owned.
The Green Revolution of the 1960s and
1970s mainly involved wheat, rice and maize. Closing the productivity, output
and income gaps of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with the rest of the world will
require appropriate measures addressing the many disincentives to greater food
and other investments in the continent needed to improve livelihoods.
Undoubtedly, increased food production can enhance food security, reduce hunger
and improve nutrition in SSA for the farmers themselves. But food security has
been undermined by trade liberalization and export promotion in the last three
decades.
The recent purchase or long-term lease
by foreign interests of choice African agricultural land to produce food for
export is especially problematic. Experience since the mid-20th century reminds
us that increasing food production alone will not be enough to eliminate
poverty and hunger in the world. There has long been enough food in the world
to feed everyone, but the hungry typically do not have the incomes or other
means to secure access to sufficient food to adequately feed themselves.
As many hundreds of millions are so
deprived, and likely to remain so for a long time to come, especially with the
likelihood of a prolonged economic slowdown, with high levels of
underemployment, unemployment and unemployability, there is no other way to
overcome poverty and hunger except with some basic social provisioning for all,
by establishing what is called a basic ‘social protection floor’.
In this connection, FAO seeks to
accelerate the transition ‘from protection to production’, and thus ensure
sustainable means to eliminate hunger and poverty while ensuring resilience in
the longer term. With the growing consensus, momentum and commitment to
eradicate world poverty and hunger by 2030 enshrined in the AAAA and SDG, it
will be necessary to deploy all the necessary instruments as soon as possible.
The AAAA emerging from the third
Financing for Development Conference in July 2015 is supposed to ensure
adequate financial and other means of implementation for this purpose. Can this
ambition be realised if AAAA is not quickly converted into Vision and Words
with Action? Can this conversion be achieved without addressing all fundamental
issues we consistently raise before, during and after UNSDS 2015?
At Addis, the Rome-based U.N. agencies
presented an affordable and feasible way to quickly eliminate hunger and
poverty through social protection, while increasing the earned incomes of the
poor with adequate pro-poor investments during 2016-2030 costing about 0.3
percent of current global income. Clearly, together, we can – and must –
eliminate hunger and poverty by 2030.
Yes, Hunger can be eliminated in our lifetimes. However, this requires comprehensive efforts to ensure that every elder, man, woman, youth
and child in each Community in each Local Government in each of the 193 Member
States enjoy their Right to adequate Food; that Women, Youth and Men are
Empowered to produce enough Food for All in their Country; that priority is
given to Family Farming, Small Holder Farming within both Rural Agriculture and
Urban Agriculture and that Food Systems in each Community in each Local
Government in each of the 193 Member States are Sustainable and Resilient.
To achieve
Hunger and malnutrition Goals in the SDGs’, the governments in each of the 193
Member States and their National and international Partners should jointly
tackle fundamental issues of: high costs of inputs like cost of credit;
imported equipment; agrochemicals; policy instability that make decision making
and planning highly uncertain and put investments at risk; low technology base
that is low mechanization; decaying infrastructure; weak institutions such as
poorly funded Research Institutes’ focus on all aspects of agriculture – pre
harvest, harvest and post harvest development research; poorly funded public
agriculture extension system; poorly funded seeds certification system; low
public and private sectors investments in agriculture – crops, livestock,
forestry and fisheries programs and projects. This underline urgent need to
convert AAAA and SDG from Vision and Words without Action into Vision and Words
with Action based on sound answers to AAAA and SDG How questions.
Paradigm Shifts
It appears past
and current attempt by World Leaders to answer the question, “How do we
eradicate World Poverty?” avoid, evade or beg the question through focusing
attention on what we see around us today - it doesn’t much care what decisions
or what people may have benefitted from bringing it into being. This is a very
handy thing politically, because it means World Leaders don’t have to examine
or treat anyone or anything as culpable, past or present.
It means that the
wealth that many in both developed and developing countries acquired through
processes that produced mass impoverishment in both developed and developing
countries, is irrelevant. It means World Leaders and Global Citizens can
comfortably usher modern organizations whose very operating logic has long
required impoverishment—including political parties and their ideologies,
corporations, and indeed whole industries—into high places of political power,
and then believe and trust what they do there.
All of this
creates more than enough room for a deeply flawed assumption to reign supreme,
that World Leaders and Global Citizens are most likely to solve National
Sustainable Development problems in each of the 193 Member States and World
Sustainable Development problems using the very logic that created these
problems in the first place.
This underlines
Einstein’s much-loved truism: “We cannot solve our problems with the same
thinking we used when we created them.” And this in turn underlines need for
paradigm shifts – from Advocacy focused on lamentation for sympathy to Advocacy
focused on Innovation for Result; from Academic Research aimed at advancing frontiers
of knowledge to Development Research aimed at improving Quality, Productivity
and Revenue where applicable; from Talking and Thinking to Action and
Accomplishments etc
One
Worldwide Approach
At the UNSDS 2015, Mogens
Lykketoft, President of the UN General Assembly, noted the need for
multi-stakeholder platforms to address the crosscutting and complex nature of
the SDGs and to avoid the silos approach. He said the UN’s three pillars,
peace, security and development, “are as interconnected as sustainability and
development.” Can this statement be operationalized in practice without
addressing serious issues of serious business raised in this and earlier Policy
Briefings and articles?
There is a Need for Master Multi Stakeholder
Platform, MSP driving Coordination, Collaboration and Cooperation within all
other MSPs' in each of the 17 SDGs' and operationalizing in practice all
Synthesis Report and Data Revolution Report Recommendations as well as AAAA and
SDG Vision and Words with Action Agenda Items. Key outcomes of UNSDS 2015
should include:-
1.
Adoption of One Worldwide Approach and Business Unusual Approach.
2.
Endorsement of UNGA Official Status to the Master MSP and all other
MSPs'.
3.
Harvesting all good ideas and pertinent suggestions generated from UNSDS
2015 New York and Online into an Outcome Document with Clear Recommendations
for full Implementation with effective Monitoring and Evaluation of this
Implementation from Village to Global levels in each of 193 Member States.
It is our hope that this type of UNSDS
2015 Outcome Document is prepared as soon as possible and used as basis for
converting AAAA and SDG into Vision and Words with Action through a Global
Consultation Process that is an Integral Part of Roadmap to Paris and that the
revised AAAA and SDG that is Vision and Words with Action will be endorsed by
World Leaders at COP21 Paris December 2015.
Acid Test of Credibility
The implication of holding UNSDS 2015 after adoption of
SDG, is that what World Leaders have adopted is SDG that is Vision and Words
without Action and what UNSDS 2015 seek to achieve is ways and means of
converting current AAAA and SDG into new AAAA and SDG that is Vision and Words
with Action. Unless this conversion is achieved, it will be an uphill task for
World Leaders to deliver on their promise to achieve SDG by 2030.
The acid test of credibility of SDG is how it delivers:-
1.
Better Domestic and International Trade in each of 193 Member
States.
2.
Better Financing – Equity, Loan and Grant for all particularly
the Poor
3.
Better War on Corruption and Terrorism and
4.
Better Environmental Sustainability.
New Thinking, New Ideas, New Ways
of Doing Things etc
The only way World Leaders can deliver on their promise
during the adoption of SDG is to improve Coordination, Collaboration,
Cooperation, Solidarity and Accountability in the design and delivery of mutual
support mechanism that help each of the 193 Member States to pass this acid
test of credibility of the SDGs.
To achieve this, the 193 Member States jointly and
severally must demonstrate and be seen to demonstrate:-
1.
Willingness to accept new ideas, new thinking, new ways of doing
things
2.
Willingness to establish new coordination, new collaboration,
new cooperation, new solidarity, new accountability and new partnership
3.
Readiness to accept past flaws, past failures, past drawbacks,
past shortcomings and past hindrances
4.
Readiness to build bridge between lessons learning and lessons
forgetting, create learning organization and create learning society
5.
Readiness to create Demand for Planning – Research, Planning,
Data as basis for creating Supply for Planning – Research, Planning, Data
6.
Readiness to create Demand for Implementation as basis for
creating supply for Implementation
7.
Readiness to create Demand for Evaluation – Monitoring,
Evaluation, Assessment as basis for creating Supply for Evaluation –
Monitoring, Evaluation, Assessment
8.
Readiness to create Demand for Accountability – Transparency,
Accountability, Citizen / Stakeholder Participation as basis for creating
Supply for Accountability – Transparency, Accountability, Citizen / Stakeholder
Participation
9.
Readiness to create Demand for Learning – Learning and Result as
basis for creating Supply for Learning – Learning and Result
10. Readiness to accept One Nationwide
/ Region wide / Worldwide 3PCM – Policy, Program, Project Cycle Management
Approach and Methodology to Sustainable Benefits focused National and
International Development Cooperation Policy, Program, Project Intervention,
3PI and 3PI Training as One in each Action Agenda Item in each of the 17 SDGs
applicable to specific context – Village to Global in each of the 193 Member
States
AAAA and SDG Village to Global Capacity
Building
The above fundamental issues of Willingness and
Readiness need to be complemented by fundamental issues of Ability – Capacity
Building; Ability – Resources and Invitation – Mandate within National and
Global Platform.
Capacity Building should be on three levels:-
1.
Individual – Hard Competences: Learning and Skills and Soft
Competences: Character, Courage and Mindset
2.
Institution / Government – Processes, Procedures, Systems,
Operations that empower Individuals to operationalize in practice Competences
they acquire through formal and informal education and training to help achieve
increasing convergence between Institution / Government Vision, Mission and
Mandate Intention and Reality.
3.
Society – Political and Cultural; Economic and Financial; Social
and Environmental; Peace and Security; Religious and Moral Space that empower
Individuals and Institutions to Thrive in the work towards achieving
Institution / Government Vision, Mission, Mandate Intention and Reality with or
without chaos.
Resources include: Influence, Science, Technology,
Innovation, Fund, Manpower, Spiritual, Land and Water.
Working Together To Benefit Together
To help ensure World Leaders deliver on promise to
achieve SDGs’ by 2030, we suggest relevant UN and Non UN authorities undertake
critical review of this and earlier Policy Briefings an Articles. Should its
assessment confirm that indeed the Policy Briefings and articles have many good
ideas and pertinent suggestions, which adopted by UNGA can help achieve
increasing convergence between AAAA and SDG Vision and Words with Action
Intention and Reality in each Community in each Local Government in each of 193
Member States, we suggest these UN and Non UN authorities consider taking the
following specific action steps:-
1.
Endorse the Policy Briefings and articles and request UNNGLS to
circulate the endorsed Policy Briefings and articles to all World Leaders, 193
Member States and other AAAA and SDG Stakeholders.
2.
Underline need for Integrated Sustainable Solutions – Political
Solutions, Cultural Solutions, Economic Solutions, Financial Solutions, Social
Solutions, Environment Solutions, Peace Solutions, Security Solutions,
Religious Solutions and Moral Solutions; to Design and Delivery of each Action
Agenda Item in AAAA and SDG applicable to specific Village to Global location
context.
3.
Urge all World Leaders, 193 member States and other AAAA and SDG
Stakeholders to recognize that Political Solutions is Master Key to unlocking
remaining 9 Integrated Sustainable Solutions.
4.
Urge UNGA to pass resolution calling on each of the 193 Member
States to adopt recommendations in the Policy Briefings and articles and go
further to establish immediately National Integrated Economic Reform Program,
NIEReP for the implementation and evaluation of domesticated AAAA and SDG
Vision and Words with Action, aligned with National Development Plan through
National Reform Bureau working with Reform Implementation Unit in each
Ministry, Department and Agency, whose activities are coordinated by Steering
Committee on Reform and National Council on Reform within complimentary
Sub-national, National, Sub-regional, Regional and Global Master Multi
Stakeholder Partnership Platforms.
If SDG Vision Ambitions are to be
achieved and on schedule date, Village to Global Stakeholders need to Work
Together to Benefit Together.
3PCM Approach
The Policy, Program, Project Cycle
Management, 3PCM Approach to Benefit focused National and International
Development Cooperation. 3PCM is probably the most advance such One Worldwide
Approach in the World today and it is available to Stakeholders. Information on
3PCM is available upon request. 3PCM has 4 Principles, 4 Instruments
corresponding to each Principle, 4 Practices and 1 Database.
The SDG Initiative is All Inclusive, All
Embracing and Ambitious. It requires a One Worldwide Approach with Local Context
that is also All Inclusive, All Embracing and Ambitious. It will be helpful if
World Leaders ensure that stating from UNSDS September 2015 till fair answer to
SDG and AAAA How questions are found in the next 3 months at appropriate Event
during the Global Consultation, put all known such Worldwide Approaches on the
table and select the Best that could help achieve increasing convergence
between revised SDG, revised AAAA, Synthesis Report, Data Revolution Report,
Global Nutrition Report and related Reports within the SDG Initiative Vision
Intention and Reality. The earlier the One Worldwide Approach is selected and
Business Unusual Approach adopted by Village to Global Stakeholders, the faster
our World will be on Track achieving SDG Targets by 2030.
Do Our
Leaders Get it?
They certainly turned out in force for the
Launch of Global Nutrition Report 2015, UNSDS 2015 Interactive Dialogues and
Side Events and discussing wide ranging issues within AAAA and SDG
Implementation and Evaluation. Promise has been freely made but AAAA and SDG
How question remain unanswered by World Leaders and UN Executives on one hand
and comprehensive answers to AAAA and SDG How questions provided by ISPE / EAG
appear ignored.
Do World Leaders recognize that AAAA and
SDG Vision and Words with Action is essentially Productivity and Quality
Improvement Program; Business Process Re-engineering Program; Strategic Change
Management Program that require Internal and External Publics getting Support
Services from Independent Multidisciplinary Consultants with adequate levels of
expertise, experience and exposure underlined by minimum certain levels of
Competences – Hard Competences: Learning and Skills and Soft Competences:
Character, Courage and Mindset? that Theory drives Practice and Abstract comes
before Reality; that they need help to convert AAAA and SDG from Vision and Words
without Action to Vision and Words with Action and that it is impossible to
engender great and anticipated AAAA and SDG realities with energy and passion
focused on doing things in the same old ways? That there is urgent need to
adopt One Worldwide Approach with clear Theory and Practice?
Can World Leaders mobilize their
constituents to adopt, implement and evaluate Global Nutrition Report, Data
Revolution Report, Synthesis Report, AAAA and SDG without the type of
comprehensive answers to Global Nutrition Report, Data Revolution Report,
Synthesis Report, AAAA and SDG Vision and Words with Action without adopting
points made in this and earlier Policy Briefings and Articles?
Global Collective
Action
The Final Push to achieve MDG by 2015 and
Post 2015 Development Agenda mobilized Global Collective Action and achieved
much. In the process it helped to shape AAAA and SDG. There is a need to take
this Global Collective Action to the Next Level if each of the 193 Member
States is to achieve increasing convergence between AAAA and SDG Vision and
Words with Action Intention and Reality by 2030. This will also help to
reposition UN as Platform for Global Collective Action for Political Stability;
WBG as Platform for Global Collective Action for Economic Stability and IMF as
Platform for Global Collective Action for Financial Stability.
Words of Wisdom
Reforming UN
System
“The UN is a member driven organization. The member
states decide what is corruption, how to fight it and how the UN can help. I am
here to comply with these rules as my view is one of 7 billion. This is no UN
Dictatorship no UN Marines who will persecute you. The UN Security Council is
the only body who can. So UN lives and strives to consensus by the member
states. If you want to change our work; your and other governments can help us.
No other way, that's the transparent rules the member states, including
yourself, have dictated us”.
UNECE Senior Official
It is clear that without achieving Corruption Free Society in any of the 194 Member States, seeking to achieve SDG Vision Ambition in that Country will be a mirage; that the view of this UNECE Senior Official needs to be taken seriously and that revising the AAAA and SDG as suggested can help addresses these fundamental issues.
What is the Role for Parliaments?
“As has been stressed in the EU Strategy
for Africa and elsewhere, parliaments are the guarantors of democratic
legitimacy and are key actors in European Development Policy. It is vital that
the national, regional and continental parliaments of Africa should be
consulted fully on the preparation of the Joint Strategy, but this is a process
that must be initiated independently by our African Partners. The Commission
therefore wishes to urge Parliament to engage in dialogue with the Commission
of the Africa Union to ensure that it actively consults the Pan African
Parliament as soon as possible on the development of the Joint Strategy. It is
essential that the Pan African Parliament should make its Voice heard on its
Vision for the Joint Strategy and that it should provide the necessary positive
momentum to enable the national and regional African Parliament to participate
fully in the debates. Any Joint Action between the European Parliament and the
Pan African Parliament would be welcome in this regard”.
Mr. Louis Michel, European Commissioner
for Development and Humanitarian Aid on EU Africa Strategy 2007
It is clear that Parliaments at
Sub-national, National, Sub-regional, Regional and Global levels need to be
reinvented where they exist and established where they do not exist, if there
is to be increasing convergence between AAAA and SDG Vision Intention and
Reality is to be achieved in each Community in each of 194 UN Member States.
Be a Solution
A
father left 17 camels as assets for his 3 sons. When the father passed away,
his sons opened the Will. The Will of the father stated the eldest son should
get half of the 17 camels, the middle son should get 1/3 of 17 camels and the
youngest son should get 1/9 of the 17 camels. As it is not possible to divide
by 2, 3 or 9, the sons started to fight with each other. So they decided to go
to a wise man. The wise man listened patiently to the Will. The wise man after
giving it a thought, brought one camel of his own and added it to the 17. That
increased the total to 18 camels. Now he started reading the deceased’s Will:-
Half
of 18 = 9. So he gave 9 camels to the eldest
1/3
of 18 = 3. So he gave 3 camels to the middle son
1/9
of 18 = 2. So he gave 2 camels to the youngest son
Now
add this up – 9 + 3 + 2 = 17
This
leaves 1 camel which the wise man took back.
Moral:
The attitude of negotiation and problem solving is to find the 18th
camel, that is, the common ground. Once a person is able to find the common
ground, the issue is resolved. It required the right attitude and behaviour,
sometimes with an arbitrator or facilitator. To reach a solution, the first
step is to believe that there is a solution. If we think that there is no
solution, we won’t be able find any. The wise man became the solution to the
battle of the 3 brothers. The wise man had the ability - resources and the
willingness - competences. There are few that have willingness serve as wise
man to Stakeholders in World Sustainable Development fighting over World
Resources. Of the few none has the ability. World Leaders need to find the wise
man and empower him to help Configure our World to achieve AAAA and SDG Vision
Ambitions and on schedule date.
Conclusion
We earlier warned that 3 Days of UNSDS is
not sufficient to answer AAAA and SDG How questions and urged World Leaders to
appreciate need to put horse before cart by endorsing revised AAAA and SDG in
November or December 2015. Can sustainable Solutions be found to Europe Crisis,
Africa Crisis and World Crisis without AAAA and SDG that is Vision and Words
with Action? Are these Crises not terrible indictment of UN at 70? Yes, UN has
recorded many successes. But there have also been many flaws and failures. Can UN
at 140 Scorecard be better if fundamental issues we raise are ignored?
If Europe is grappling with about 1
million asylum seekers and economic refugees today; what will be their
situation in future should Europe have to grapple with over 10 million asylum
seekers and economic migrants should World Leaders look on and allow
possibility of Nigeria disintegrating to become reality and how will Europe
Leaders and Citizens cope should they have to grapple with over 250 million
asylum seekers and economic migrants should World Leaders look on and watch
Global Recession worsen to levels that make 1930s’ Recession Child’s Play?
To risk squandering bright prospects of
success in the work towards achieving AAAA and SDG Vision Ambitions on
successful and sustainable basis is to gamble with these grievous scenarios
occurring in reality.
To delay or refuse to identify the wise
man/woman and invite him/her to work with World Leaders, 194 Member States
Governments, International Institutions, Businesses, Financial Institutions,
Universities, CSOs’, Media and Global Citizens on Sustainable Solutions to
World Sustainable Development is to put bright prospects of success in the work
towards achieving AAAA and SDG Vision Ambitions in jeopardy.
COP21 is the first real test of Change
from Business as Usual to Business Unusual. If this Change is not demonstrated
and seen to be demonstrated in Paris then AAAA and SDG is most likely FLUKE.
To prevent this, every effort must be made
by World Leaders to ensure that Paris succeeds where Addis Ababa and New York
have failed. This calls for Design and Delivery of Roadmap to Paris for
Development Results? Can this be done without addressing points made in this
Policy Briefing, earlier Policy Briefings and Articles? The ultimate
consequence of squandering bright prospects of achieving AAAA and SDG Vision
Ambitions could be catastrophic for citizens in all 193 Member States
particularly the over 4 Billion Poor.
Our Suggestion: UN Executives and Staff can help 194
Member States; CSOs’ and other Stakeholders guided by Wise Man / Woman, make
the Right Choice if UNDESA, FfD Office, ECOSOC Office, EOSG and 70th OPGA
accept to jointly nudge all remaining Stakeholders to address all issues raised
in this Policy Briefing, earlier Policy Briefings and Articles and on time. The Time to raise Voices is NOW.
Delay is Dangerous.
God Bless UN Family Organization.
God Bless our World.
Contact:
Lanre Rotimi
Director General,
International
Society for Poverty Elimination /
Economic Alliance
Group,
Akure – Nigeria,
West Africa.
Email: nehap.initiative@yahoo.co.uk
M: +234-8162469805
