The Post-2015 Development Agenda: New Goals, New Questions | | UNU-MERIT's BLOGUNU-MERIT's BLOG

By Professor Bart Verspagen, Director of UNU-MERIT.

On 30 May 2013, the High-Level Panel assembled by the UN Secretary General published its recommendations for the post-2015 development agenda. The document outlines both a general view on the future of global development (culminating in the five ‘big, transformative shifts’) and a list of goals and targets to follow up on the original Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The new list is longer than the original: there are now 12 instead of eight goals, and 53 instead of 21 targets. Two clear observations can be drawn from this sheer rise in numbers. First, the increase may be interpreted as an indication of a wider and higher level of ambition. Coming from this group of eminent persons, including many political leaders, this is a positive factor. Despite attracting various critiques, the MDGs have been a positive focusing device for policy and thinking about policy. By increasing the scope of goals, this focusing function is potentially stronger because it will affect a larger set of relevant issues.

Second, the MDGs have been criticized for making arbitrary choices on narrow indicators, that do not reflect the full spectrum of developments that are required to address the broader goals of development. Looking at the targets, the new list of 53 items is likely to remain subject to such criticism. While most targets are relevant to development, they do not form an exhaustive list of dimensions for the goals to which they are linked. The new goals themselves are certainly broader than the original MDGs (for example, ‘Ensure healthy lives’ has a wider scope than focusing on particular diseases or issues such as child mortality). But these broad goals are not directly measurable and so less subject to the strong focusing function of the original MDGs. The (53) targets mostly are, but they are hardly exhaustive.

The more relevant questions relate to the content rather than the quantity of the new goals and targets. There is little that can be brought against the ambitions that speak from the list of goals as such. All of these dimensions are relevant and commendable. However, a comparison between the old list of 21 targets to the new list of 53 does provide some insights that may lead to more criticism. We can reach such insights by categorizing the two (old and new) sets of targets into three categories: those that are new (new targets not related to any specific old target), those that have vanished (old targets not related to any new target) and persistent targets (old targets that are more or less related to new targets, or vice versa).

Let us start with a brief discussion of the vanished targets. I count five: 3A, and 8B-8E. 3A is related to gender disparity in education, and 8B-8E are all related to specific groups of countries (Least Developed Countries, LDC; Small Island Developing States, SIDS) or specific problems (national debt and access to medicine). Without being able to provide a full survey here, it is fair to say that the specific problems that these indicators point to, have not generally been solved. Progress has been made, for example in access to medicines, but it is not complete. My assessment is that specific attention to LDC is still necessary, and perhaps we should even be more specific than this (for example, land-locked countries or Sub-Saharan African countries). There seems to be little reason to remove these five topics from the list of targets.

I would categorize the other 16 targets on the original list of 21 as persistent targets. In the new list, they do not appear in the same formulation, their level of ambition has often been increased, and sometimes they have been put under different goals. I would interpret these persistent targets as a strong list of focusing devices, indicating both (by their reformulations) the progress that has been made, and the need for continuing efforts.

My strongest criticism lies in the list of new targets. There are 41 of these new targets, and they can be classified under a number of labels, of which ‘institutions’ and ‘sustainability’ are the two that attract most items. On institutions, the report notes that “[t]hey are both means to an end and an end in themselves”. Although no specific comment is made in the text, it seems that this statement both reflects a justification (the list of goals and targets generally only includes ‘ends’, which is indeed what gives it a large part of its power as a focusing device), and an excuse (most scholars, including most economists like myself, would primarily see these institutions as a means to an end).

Having (specific) institutions on the list makes it hard to ignore them as a means to an end. And this is exactly where the list becomes problematic. The institutional issues on the new target list include social protection policy; control of violence (specifically against women and girls, against children, and related to conflicts and crime); child marriage; women’s rights and women’s economic position; financial systems and investment; boosting entrepreneurship; legal institutions; freedom of speech, civic engagement; transparent governance, corruption; justice, law enforcement; development policy; and taxes. This is a long list, and usually the targets are much more specific than the general formulations I have reproduced here.

By including this list, and presenting it as both an end and a means to an end, the report strongly implies that there is a consensus about what institutions matter for development. But certainly there are caveats to this idea. First, there are clear examples of cases where development is or was proceeding at a strong pace, but large chunks of the above list remain to be implemented. For example, development of many Asian countries that are now among the richest in the world had little to do with entrepreneurship (in the sense of startups). Much more controversial from a human rights point of view, but still undeniable: there are clear examples of countries that are growing very rapidly, but which have not (yet) implemented basic democratic values. And there are examples of very developed countries which still clearly lack some of the items on the above list.

Second, there are strong issues about the direction of causality between institutions and development. Are institutions a means for development, or is development a means for ‘better’ institutions? The economic profession has occupied itself with this question over the last decade, but despite fancy econometric techniques the evidence remains scarce. This is because available data do not cover a large enough part of what institutions stand for, and because theory can hardly keep up with the intricacies of the methods.

From this point of view, mixing the ends and the means to ends on the list of targets does not seem a constructive idea. The MDGs made specific choices, and perhaps other choices would have been better. But at least there could be little controversy about the ‘intrinsic value’ of the topics that they addressed. As an end, there will be little controversy about the institutional items on the new list, but as a means, controversy will be abound, both politically and scholarly. It would be wise to avoid such controversy in exactly the same way that the original MDGs avoided controversy, i.e., by not being specific about the means to the ends.

A final word about the label of sustainability. This is a much more credible ‘end’, although it can probably also be seen as a ‘means’. But here the problem lies elsewhere. To me sustainability seems to be a topic that is beyond ‘focusing’. It has been on the international policy agenda at least since the inception of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988, albeit with rather varying support from the various governments around the globe. Efforts are still lacking in a major way, and it is very doubtful whether the attention given to the topic on the list of new targets will make the hoped for difference.

Perhaps this is a case where the ‘means to the end’ have to be made more specific. I am thinking of science, knowledge and innovation. Obviously, knowledge is closely related to development, and sustainable development in particular. But the old MDGs and new targets are remarkably silent on knowledge. The only mention of knowledge comes as a general plea for access to scientific results and data (12F in the new list), and the same plea for technology in the old list (8F). Large scale investment, public and private for developing the knowledge necessary for sustainable development, in all its dimensions, may be the better way to bring the topic of sustainability back to life. Knowledge is a means to an end, but, from the UN University perspective, it is also an end in itself.

The Post-2015 Development Agenda: New Goals, New Questions | | UNU-MERIT's BLOGUNU-MERIT's BLOG

Post-2015 planning offers compelling messages for scientists - SciDev.Net

By Nick Ishmael Perkins

A UN panel's report indicates an unfamiliarity with scientists, but there are various ways to develop collaboration.

The biggest current conversation in global development is the one about what follows the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015.

In the lead-up to this, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon convened a High-level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda — chaired by the presidents of Indonesia and Liberia, and the UK prime minister — to recommend a way forward. Their labours offer lessons for bridging development and science.

The panel's work appears to have been driven by two overwhelming concerns: to avoid alienating any group if possible and to produce a clear and compelling report. It is hard to take issue with either principle — and the document is a seductive read.

However, while the report offers much promise and some revolution, it is deeply political and declares itself resolutely concerned with what is possible.

This is particularly clear when we look at science's role in the post-2015 agenda. While there is much in the report calling for science's involvement, the panel appears to lack the knowledge to clearly spell out how this could be achieved.

Reconciling divergent aspirations

Both Michael Anderson of the UK Department for International Development, who was the prime minister's special envoy for the development goals, and Amina J. Mohammed, the secretary-general's special advisor on post-2015 development planning, acknowledge that work remains to reconcile the document's apparently divergent aspirations.

The two were speaking yesterday (6 June) at a London event hosted by the Royal Society, in collaboration with the British Council, the UK Collaborative on Development Sciences and SciDev.Net, to explore the report's implications for science.

Anderson was clear about what he expects from science in general: rigorous and, in some cases, sensible proxy indicators; help for policymakers in understanding risk and causal relationships; and general support in making decisions in uncertain contexts. He and Mohammed were also clear about the need to resonate with ministers who have no appetite for briefings of more than two pages and people whose daily privations do not allow them to think in research-cycle timeframes.

However, when the event's panel — which included Oxfam's Duncan Green and Beyond 2015's Dominic Haslam, and was chaired by former UK chief scientific advisor John Beddington — was asked about priority issues for science to engage around, there was no clear response.

What you have is a document that lacks clear and persuasive messages for engaging science.

One of the report's key recommendations is to continue — but expand — the framework of straightforward goals that form the MDGs, because these are easy for most people to understand. The report also makes a reasoned argument for the development community to get serious about global partnerships, the much-neglected eighth MDG.

It even specifies the range of stakeholder groups — one being scientists — that partnerships must be developed with, explaining that poverty reduction is just the beginning and that sustainable development requires us to move outside aid and work with those making a difference in areas such as business, energy and technology.

However, overall, the report struggles to frame compelling messages for those it is less used to dealing with.

Unfamiliarity with science

That is not to say that the report is silent on science and technology. It contains a brief but effective case for their role in delivering human development and provides useful examples of how they have catalysed sustainable development. It also calls for a data revolution to underpin transparency and equity.

But there is a lack of follow-through in the report that comes from a lack of familiarity and discussion with the science community. At last night's event, Duncan Green said that scientists have been crowded out by louder, clearer voices such as those in NGOs.

However, what became evident from the panel and subsequent dinner was that there are various ways to develop collaboration.

The first is to go back to the principle of speaking the language of those you seek to engage. This does not mean adopting technical terminology, but looking to the ambitions of the post-2015 agenda and identifying the problems that science can help solve. Problems lend themselves to hypotheses and reviews of existing evidence — things that scientists understand.

Secondly, it would be useful to acknowledge that funding is a key way of fostering collaboration. High-profile examples of this working for international collaboration include the particle collider at CERN that discovered the Higgs boson and the Human Genome Project. Often these have been driven by the notion that the funding required is too large for any one agency or nation.

What the report does illustrate, however, is that there are some problems where the political context is too intractable and wide-ranging for any one agency or country to take on alone.

In principle, there is still time to get things right. The report will be analysed and debated by the UN system, and subject to further consultations and working groups. There is also a separate process exploring a sustainable development agenda, which is intended to intersect with this report.

But we shouldn't wait two years to start acting on the report's recommendations. As John Beddington said, the changes in our world that the report describes are happening now and they affect us all.

The report makes clear the major transformations required to respond to such changes. A billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty over the past 20 years, but business as usual will not work for the next billion. When viewed from this perspective, there is an overwhelming urgency and opportunity to act now.

By the end of the evening, some research councils were considering what they could do in the next three months.

Post-2015 planning offers compelling messages for scientists - SciDev.Net

Diverse use of Guatemala's biosphere reserve works best, research shows

By Barbara Fraser, CIFOR

New settlers, organized crime and climate change – these are just a few of the challenges facing communities in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve. But research shows that the communities that cope best are those that successfully manage their forests for multiple uses.

“Not surprisingly, communities with the highest degrees of both product diversification and social organisation appear better able to deal with economic and sociological challenges,” said Manuel Guariguata, editor of a special issue of the journal Forest Ecology and Management.

The issue includes a study of the first decade of community-managed forestry in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, led by Jeremy Radachowsky, senior program officer for the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Latin America and Caribbean program.

The biosphere reserve model – implemented in over 117 countries – seeks to promote a balance between human activities and the environment by including sustainable economic development in conservation planning.

The Maya Biosphere Reserve lies in Guatemala’s northern Petén region and was created in 1990 to protect the largest area of tropical forest remaining in Central America – covering over 2 million hectares.

It includes areas demarcated for research and low-impact tourism, as well as a buffer area. The heart of the reserve is a multi-use zone with 14 concessions, two of which are held by timber companies. The rest are held by communities, some of which have struggled or even failed in managing their forest resources, according to the study.

“Their experience offers lessons for other tropical forest communities, because it shows how a large number of variables affect community-managed forestry,” Radachowsky said.

Claiming a concession

Fourteen concessions were granted in the reserve between 1994 and 2002, partly as a result of the peace accords that ended Guatemala’s civil war, according to the study. The concessions ranged from 7,000 to 83,000 hectares and covered more than half a million hectares in the reserve’s multi-use zone.

To win a concession, community organizations had to show that they could manage forest resources sustainably, partner with an NGO for technical assistance and obtain forest certification within three years. Communities were allowed to manage all forest resources, while the two private companies, which were operating before the reserve was set up, could only extract timber.

Two of the concessions went to each of the century-old communities of Carmelita and Uaxactún, which have traditionally harvested chicle, the latex used to make natural chewing gum, as well as allspice (Pimenta dioica) and fronds from palms known locally as xate (Chamaedorea spp.).

“Even before the reserve was established, these communities had been living in the forest with livelihoods based on extraction of forest products for market and for subsistence use,” Radachowsky said.

Four concessions went to newer communities that had settled in the multi-use zone around the time that the biosphere reserve was created, and six went to communities in the reserve’s buffer zone. The settlers were mainly immigrants from other parts of Guatemala who were accustomed to farming and ranching, but had little forest-management experience.

The good, the bad and the ugly

Overall, the results of a decade’s forest management appear positive, the study said. All of the community concessions obtained Forest Stewardship Council certification for their timber, and some communities have installed sawmills and learned to manage the entire production chain, from the forest to the market. Certified timber now brings in some US$13 million a year.

Non-timber products generate additional revenue, despite a reduction in yield caused by drought and a decrease in global demand for chicle and allspice. Families in Carmelita can earn more than US$2,300 each from non-timber products. Total annual revenue from xate alone in the reserve is estimated at US$5.7 million, thanks in part to savvy communities improving their practices to avoid overharvesting.

Yet three of the four communities of recent immigrants lost their concessions. The government’s National Council for Protected Areas, which oversees the reserve, is in danger of losing it because of repeated non-compliance with regulations, Radachowsky said.

The four concessions run by recent settlers have had greater incursions by large-scale cattle ranchers, with the resulting conflicts involving death threats and at least one murder. They have also had the highest rates of deforestation – 1.54 percent annually, compared with less than 0.01 percent in the other 10 concessions – and damage from fires, with more than 900 hectares burned each year, compared with 225 hectares in the other 10.

The degrees of success and failure show the importance of considering communities’ characteristics when planning community forestry programs, Radachowsky said.

“In the four concessions with recent immigrants, there has been constant turnover,” he said. When the community of La Colorada was evicted from the reserve, “40 of the original 42 families weren’t there anymore.”

The arrival of ranchers also changed the local economy.

“They decreased the resource base that local people depended on and developed a wage-labor and farmhand economy,” Radachowsky said.

“A lot of people ended up working for the ranchers and in small shops.”

The two older communities and the communities in the buffer zone successfully resisted land grabs by outsiders. But they have had their troubles too, including financial mismanagement and conflicts over the distribution of revenue.

Tradition, training and tenacity

Communities elsewhere could learn from the experiences in the biosphere reserve for their own forest management, Radachowsky said.

Concession holders in the buffer zone were more successful than the newcomers because they joined together by choice, not simply because they lived in the same community, said Radachowsky, who calls the buffer-zone residents “communities of practice”.

Residents of the two older – and more successful – forest-dwelling communities already had a long tradition of working together to manage their forests.

The financial problems experienced by some communities indicate that training for community forestry programs should include more on business administration.

“Poor financial management practices and acquired debt may be the greatest threat to concession sustainability,” Radachowsky said.

Communities that diversify their production are also more successful, because they are better prepared to deal with the ups and downs of markets, according to the study’s authors.

Nevertheless, governments and NGOs must recognize that community-managed concessions may never be completely self-supporting, Radachowsky argued.

“We should give up the myth that community concessions have to be self-sustaining and look upon the benefits they provide, as well as issues of social equity and justice, and be willing to find complementary solutions for financing,” he said.

That is especially true in a place like the Petén, where communities face particularly difficult problems such as threats from organized crime, he added.

“Forest management and community management are long-term processes,” Radachowsky said.

“I don’t think there’s an ideal model. It takes tenacity and perseverance. It’s the process of going through difficult situations together that builds relationships and makes them stronger.”

Diverse use of Guatemala's biosphere reserve works best, research shows

Let Me Recycle That For You. Please.

By Jordana Timerman, The Atlantic Cities

Call it "grassroots recycling" for the developing world: Every evening, thousands of people sift through the residential trash of Buenos Aires, filling sacks and carts with paper, bottles, and anything else that might be sold or reused. They do it because they have few other options for work, and the raw materials they find in the garbage allow them to scrape together a living. But these cartoneros, as they're called, might also be the key to managing the city's pressing waste management problem.

Despite passing an ambitious "zero waste" law in 2004, Buenos Aires has been slow to meet its targets for landfill diversion. Up until very recently, the city had been responsible for sending more than 90 percent of its 6,000 metric tons of waste per day to landfills. In April, the municipal government announced it had improved that number by 29 percent, though environmental groups have already criticized the city's methods. And local landfills are bursting at the seams as it is.

Where waste disposal experts agree is that efficient recycling could help Buenos Aires in a big way. Yet the city's informal cartonero system has yet to be taken seriously as a public works program or receive the municipal support it needs to help it achieve that efficiency.

Fifty-five-year-old Gustavo Ibañez began in the industry as most cartoneros did, in the lead-up to Argentina's 2001-2002 economic, political and social crisis, which saw national unemployment levels top 22 percent. The printing press where Ibañez worked closed that year, leaving him searching for ways to make a living. Over the past decade, these unemployed people sifting through garbage have grown into an ad-hoc city-wide movement with over 4,000 "urban recoverers" now affiliated with twelve cooperatives. Although they were initially opposed by trash collection companies and discriminated against by the residents whose trash they sorted, they have fought for, and received, increased recognition as a legitimate work-force. Today, they are the closest thing the city has to a municipal recycling system.

Ibañez is now the president of the Cooperativa Recuperadores Urbanos del Oeste, which has about 700 cartonero members who gather about 35 metric tons of recyclables per day. He watches proudly as his members bring in their loads one evening at the end of their shift. Their sacks are taken by truck to a brand new recycling center, also run by a cooperative, to be aggregated and sold. The cartoneros now wear uniforms provided by the government, receive a minimum stipend as well as limited social security benefits, and cooperatives prohibit children from working alongside their parents. Ibañez estimates that each cartonero might earn between 1,000 and 4,000 Argentine pesos (that's about $195-$770) per month, but the number fluctuates depending on what they find and prices for specific materials.

Urban policy critics here have noted that the system treats recycling more like a social relief program. In exchange for running the city’s recycling system, recoverers receive only a stipend and the meager profits from what they sell. If you factor in the savings they bring the city through landfill diversion, there's a strong case to be made that they're actually making the city money.

"This could be much improved," says Ibañez. If residents separated their recyclables, he estimates the cartonero collection rate could be quadrupled. Plus, his workers wouldn't be forced to root through trash bags, bumping into dirty diapers and broken glassware. Sidewalks would be cleaner too, as trash bag content wouldn't be sorted on sidewalks. While the city’s website ostensibly encourages concerned citizens to separate recyclables at home and take them out to their streets’ cartoneros, there is no comprehensive education effort or system for neighbors to liaise with their local cooperative. Nor are there answers for buildings with central trash collection. Recycling only really exists as activism for Buenos Aires residents.

International experience points towards the success of more comprehensive efforts, albeit on a smaller scale. The city of Londrina in Brazil has succeeded in recycling 23 percent of the 309 tons of waste it produces each day. Those 90 tons of recyclables are gathered by “catadores,” as they are called there. In addition to receiving municipal logistical support, the catadores spearheaded a door-to-door education initiative, explaining how to separate recyclables and developing a collection schedule with residents. Other cities in Brazil and Bogotá in Colombia are also experimenting with similar systems.

With Buenos Aires's main landfill expected to top off this year, and suburban mayors (and their constituents) refusing to permit new ones, the city government can no longer afford to drag its feet. If they're not already considering fully formalizing the cartoneros, they should be.

Let Me Recycle That For You. Please.

Andrew Wardell - Who owns the rights to the world's common resources?

Toilets provide dignity for Nepal’s disabled | India Sanitation Portal

Source: India Sanitation Portal

"Before my house had a toilet, I would have to ask my grandsons to help me out into a field, hold me up, and stay with me until I was done,” Krishna Devi, a 59-year-old woman with a physical disability in Nepal’s southern Kapilbastu District along the border with India, told IRIN.

“It was humiliating,” she said, “but now with a toilet I have independence and control over my own life.”
Devi’s village is in one of the poorest in Nepal. She lives in a small cluster of houses that has in recent months begun to end open defecation, which can contribute to water contamination and the spread of infectious diarrhoeal diseases, including cholera, says the World Health Organization.

According to local research organizations, a 2009 diarrhoea outbreak in Nepal’s Far West region killed hundreds of people.

A 2011 Nepal population and housing census indicated that nearly 40 percent of homes do not have toilets, leading millions of people to defecate outside.

Although the public health benefits of ending open defecation are widely touted, knowledge of the effects of such campaigns on the lives of people with disabilities remain only anecdotal, say experts.

“While we don’t have exact data on ODF [open defecation free] and disability, we are confident the programmes are benefiting people with disabilities,” said Andreas Knapp, chief of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Nepal.

Reducing Stigma
Disability rights activists also see sanitation as a crucial part of inclusion.

The UN special rapporteur on the right to sanitation has noted that technical provisions - including the construction of toilets - can contribute to the erosion of stigma against people with disabilities.

In 2011 Nepal launched an extensive campaign to end open defecation across the country by 2017.

Seven of the country’s 75 districts have been declared ODF, and six are on track to complete the process by the end of 2013, according to UNICEF. In order for a village to be declared ODF, each household and public facility must have a functioning toilet.

Focus on Schools
Previous programmes in Nepal have focused on school-based sanitation, targeting children, as studies have shown children suffer high rates of diarrhoea and stunting as a result of contamination that takes place in areas where people defecate in the open.

Lack of accessible sanitation can also limit participation in society.

A 2011 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report highlighted cases of children who are unable to access toilets at schools, one of the many barriers to education they face.

"Girls with disabilities often have no choice but to drop out of school once they reach puberty because there are no support services in school - for example, to help them during menstruation - and sometimes not even toilets in the school," Shantha Rau Barriga, HRW’s disability rights director and author of the report, told IRIN.

But, Barriga said, toilets at schools are not enough - they must be accessible and safe as well.

"When schools are building toilets to improve sanitation for everyone, they should consult with students with disabilities and their parents about how to make the facilities accessible," she said, echoing the findings of studies on sanitation and disability which have shown that establishing sanitation infrastructure does not necessarily mean access for people with disabilities.

“People with disabilities face many problems related to infrastructure, including inaccessible sanitation facilities,” said Shudarson Subedi, chair of the National Federation of the Disabled - Nepal.

The Nepal government’s guidelines stipulate that all toilets must be disability-friendly, with ramps, sufficient space, and hand rails.

According to UNICEF’s Knapp, the programme, by virtue of being holistic and community-driven, will benefit people with disabilities. “The model in Nepal for ODF goes community-by-community so we see everyone benefiting because for a village to get credit for `going ODF’ they have to help each other - including people with disabilities,” he said.

“It’s amazing what a difference an inexpensive handrail can make,” he added.

Toilets provide dignity for Nepal’s disabled | India Sanitation Portal

Discussion of the High Level Panel's Report on the Post-2015