WUNRN
Global Policy Watch – Social Watch - https://www.globalpolicywatch.org/struggle-the-agenda/
Global Policy Forum – Promoting Transparency & Accountability in the Post-2015 & Financing for Development Processes
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THIS IS A VERY SERIOUS DOCUMENT. As NGO’s and Women’s Advocates, it is a supreme challenge to follow the details, meetings, negotiations on the Post-2015 Development Agenda AND the Financing for Development. BUT, the end result documents will affect all our lives in the context of global thematic priorities, funding, and power forces. To simplify, the outcomes will determine in the Post-2015 Agenda and Funding: WHO RULES, WHO PROFITS, WHO WILL BENEFIT, POWER STRUCTURES, and thus where women’s issues and support and human rights will figures into this exceedingly important UN mechanism which will be decided at the 2015 UN General Assembly by Member States. But, it is being decided now, in the process, by multiple power brokers, and there are shifts in dominance and language, and players.
Programs like the Post-2015 Women’s Coalition and the Women’s Major Group have been closely watching and communicating the Post-2015 Process and the FfD – Financing for Development, with the participation of other women’s groups as possible. But, it is a challenge to have the desired gender impact, engagement, and inclusion.
WUNRN has emboldened selected items in this important text below, to illustrate. Let us as well figure into this “Agenda” and “Financing” the reality that women are the most poor, the most impacted by the economic and food crises and austerity measures, the most displaced and refugees, and the most victims of natural disaster and climate change, and the least present as actual delegates in the Post-2015 Agenda. WUNRN
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The Struggle to Shape the Post-2015 Agenda & Financing -
For Civil Society, Human Rights, WOMEN |
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By Barbara Adams, Gretchen Luchsinger –
29 April 2015 It is not surprising that the political
battles have already become fierce in the concurrent negotiations for the
Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD3) and the
post-2015 development agenda with its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
At stake is who will shape the agenda—and how much real impact it will have. What is the direction of the
“transformation” that is now so frequently discussed in both talks? Are we
headed towards a world of multi-stakeholder partnerships and the increasing
outsourcing of public functions to private control, where those in positions
of privilege can maintain their entitlements, at least until we fully breach
planetary boundaries? Or towards a world where we make
decisions based foremost on the welfare of the majority of people and the
planet? Where we embrace the distinction between primary duty bearers
(governments) and rights holders (all people without exception), and where we
recognize that some actors have more capacities and therefore responsibilities
than others? And where patterns of consumption and production are rebalanced
so that development reaches everyone and respects planetary boundaries, now
and over the longer term? One interesting indication of the
potential power of the post-2015 agenda is that actors like the multilateral
development banks (MDBs) are fighting hard to position themselves at the
centre. Is that about
keeping on top of the trillions that they recently estimated would be
required to achieve the agenda? Or, digging a little deeper, about fears of
eventual irrelevance, since the agenda’s sustainable development narrative—if
taken seriously—diverges so thoroughly from the one pushed by the MDBs for
many years? If sustainable, inclusive development is what we mean when we talk
about a transformative agenda, who should really be implementing it? Who wants what? The FfD3 session in mid-April talked
about transformation, but that was not very apparent in early political
moves. Rich countries regularly affirmed the importance of channeling more
ODA (Official Development Assistance) to the least development
countries—despite a declining trend in some regions in recent years. Were
they motivated by the principle of tackling exclusion, or by a hard political
calculation that this would split off a major chunk of the G77 bloc? And who
could really blame the LDCs for responding in kind with a steady stream of
specific demands, since their challenges are so stark on so many fronts and
their options are so few. Some of the BRICS countries (BRICS is the acronym for
an association of five major national economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South
Africa) have
systematically pushed a progressive take on both FfD3 and post-2015. But they
have other fields of play—like the G20. Less clear is what all of this might
mean for the many smaller and mid-size middle-income developing countries,
who regularly call attention to their set of issues, but who are looking at a
future that will probably be squeezed by a falling ODA share on one hand, and
on another, limited traction on many issues, from trade to illicit financial
flows to debt burdens, critical to continued development—much less a version
that is sustainable and inclusive. One civil society advocate pointed
out that unless you believe the “fairy tale” of the 0.7 ODA
commitment—promised for so many years and never met—so far, there is very
little for developing countries in the FfD3 zero draft outcome document. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, some rich
countries were hard at work curbing challenges to political and economic
configurations that mostly benefit them. Their activities are taking place
partly through the FfD3 and post-2015 negotiations, but also through proxies
such as the international financial institutions (IFIs). In some developing countries, finance
ministries, having heard from IFI counterparts, are reportedly questioning
foreign ministries on issues like whether or not the post-2015 agenda has too
many goals, and why the whole enterprise can’t be boiled down to a
streamlined emphasis on poverty eradication and shared prosperity. This may miss the point made by a civil society advocate at the
FfD3 civil society hearings that unless development models change
significantly to start with people and the planet instead of profits,
prosperity will continue to drive poverty. At a joint session on FfD3 and
post-2015, one of the post-2015 co-facilitators expressed astonishment that
the G20 recently committed to 1,000 structural reform actions in two years.
He suggested that in comparison, 17 goals and 169 targets over 15 years
seemed quite doable, and if not, something is “clearly wrong.” He hoped not
to hear about the number of goals and targets again. Who’s in the agenda? Following the April FfD3 talks, the zero
draft of the outcome document is now under review. It is revealing to look at
who features most prominently in it so far, and to wonder if this foretells
what’s ahead. Who is singled out in its second
section, on mobilizing the means to implement the post-2015 agenda? While
governments are presumably there in the background as the architects of the
agreement, and the “inviters” for others to “join us,” the first specifically
mentioned actors are global funds, philanthropists, foundations and the
private sector. These
are followed by a reference to national and multilateral development banks.
And then the business sector appears again as a critical driver of
sustainable development. Governments (along with households and businesses,
again) only appear in the second to last paragraph, in a reference to
changing behaviors to achieve sustainable consumption and production
patterns. In the following section on domestic
public finance, actors highlighted include the Extractive Industries
Transparency Initiative (linking back to the World Bank), the Global Forum on
Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (OECD), the OECD
proper, the G20, the IMF, the World Bank, the Financial Stability Board
(G20), and the Open Government Partnership (around 65 countries). Among
references to the United Nations system, the most universal and democratic of
all multilateral organizations, several are in conjunction with the World
Bank and IMF. The international public finance section
features the Leading Group on Innovative Financing for Development (involving
the OECD and MDBs, among others), multiple references to the MDBs and IFIs,
and the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency. It devotes
several paragraphs to the so-called vertical or single-issue funds, several
of which link back to the World Bank or to private philanthropies such as the
Gates Foundation, as well as a few tied to the UN or regional bodies. And who weighs in on systemic issues?
The IMF, the World Bank, the Financial Stability Board and the Basel
Committee on Banking Supervision, with a nod to the ILO conventions for
migrant workers, and to “UN forums” for international sustainable development
commitments. MDB angling—for relevance? The dominance of the multilateral
development banks in the FfD3 zero draft is not surprising—at least from the
perspective of the current power configuration, if not so much from the
perspectives of global democracy and sustainable, inclusive development. To position themselves in the FfD3 and
post-2015 processes, the World Bank, all the big regional development banks
and the IMF have come together on a joint statement on post-2015 financing
for development. It sets forward the idea that financing the new agenda
requires a shift from billions to trillions of dollars. The exercise suggests
a couple of dimensions that may be a divergence from the past. Are the banks
and their backers realizing that the bill has come due and needs to gradually
be sold to electorates—as in, we really have come to a crisis point that
really is going to cost a lot to fix? And/or: are the IFIs circling the
wagons, as it were, because they feel their dominant position is at risk? In the past, for example, the World Bank
viewed its regional counterparts as somewhat distant cousins, easily
overlooked outside Washington. But now on the horizon are recent moves by
China and other big developing countries—and some rich countries as well—to
create new multilateral development banks. This follows ongoing discontent
with the old banks’ undemocratic governance structures, plus policy advice
that in many cases would not be taken seriously without the money that comes
with it. After years of advising market competition, are the traditional
lenders finally worried about facing it themselves? It seems the adjustment may take some
time. The World Bank, at an April session with delegates to both the FfD3 and
post-2015 processes, went on at length about how it is trying to be more
responsive to country concerns, while also emphasizing that the MDBs have
doubled investment to the private sector—which is not the primary concern in
many countries. It also clearly outlined how the banks would be reporting on
contributions to FfD3 and post-2015 through their individual governance
structures, and not through any combined forum at the UN, even though those
provide an equal voice for governments, and offer a greater chance of
ensuring all policies and resources are fully consistent with the SDGs. Further, much of the IMF and World Bank
emphasis is on the money side of financing. What about how the “trillions”
will be spent? Priorities of the IFIs, outlined in a recent press release,
include strengthening domestic financial markets and deepening financial
inclusion—but with no reference to sustainability. Vertigo from vertical If governments endorsed the FfD3 zero
draft tomorrow, proponents of the vertical funds would be pleased, given
substantial space devoted to these on issues such as environment, health,
education and food security. The funds were originally conceived as opportunities
to fill funding gaps and devote focused attention to major issues. Yet they
have led to a profusion of institutions and funding streams. In some cases,
they operate on top of existing bodies, as when UN development agencies are
used essentially to execute projects—and that in itself is in addition to
whatever may already exist in a given country. If sustainable development is
about integrating all dimensions of development, recognizing how
interdependent they are, single-issue funds go in the opposite direction. There are questions about how
accountable they are to countries, since many draw from private finance, do
not operate under a multilateral governance framework and are not bound by
international norms. There have been consistent country reports of
misalignment with national priorities. Poor countries, in particular, feel
pressured to take the funds, even for programmes that may not be most
relevant to them. Health has been an area where the
single-issue funds have claimed many achievements. And yet a telling moment
came at the FfD3 civil society hearings in mid-April when an advocate from
West Africa described Ebola as a failure of the global economic system. His
point was that poor West Africa countries cannot establish the comprehensive health
systems they need because they do not have the capacities or opportunities to
develop fully functioning economies that provide sufficient resources for
health care. Delivering a lot of vaccines or building some hospitals or
mobilizing people around a certain disease—as some vertical funds do—only
fills some gaps, for a while. It falls far short of upholding the right to
health, which depends on access, for everyone, at any given point in time, to
all treatments, all medicines, all medical skills and facilities, and so on. Calls in some quarters for assigning a
vertical fund to each of the Sustainable Development Goals suggest an odd
direction—universality via fragmentation? Outsourcing to businesses The private sector is so dominant in the
FfD3 zero draft that some government representatives have referred to FfD3
being “outsourced” to businesses. What drives that emphasis? Is it about rich countries, in the
wake of the global economic crisis, wanting to reduce expectations from their
public purses? Is it about large businesses controlling governments, through
electoral finance and lobbying, and hoping to tilt regulatory arrangements
ever more in their favour? Is it the old assumption, unproven by consistent
evidence, that compared to the public sector, business is more effective,
efficient, innovative, responsive (as long as there is money to be made),
etc.? The section on private business and
finance “acknowledges the role of private business activity, investment and
innovation as major drivers of increased productivity, job creation, and
economic growth, which provide people with the opportunity to overcome
poverty and inequality.” Today’s unprecedented levels of private business
activity, however, have run parallel to widening inequality around the world
and the destruction of environmental resources. The current business model is not built
on the principles of sustainability and inclusion. It mostly does not operate
within a social contract grounded in human rights. The zero draft’s
references to social and environmental responsibility principles and to
businesses assuming costs for externalities such as pollution will only go so
far—likely not as far as the SDGs. For many businesses, the rewards of ignoring
principles outside those related to profit, even in the face of regulation,
are still very great. Large business in particular are quite
skillful in presenting a public image of progress that often fails to
translate very far into actual practice, as has been obvious from the UN’s
Global Compact, “welcomed” by the zero draft. And then there is the draft’s reference
to working with international accounting standard-setting bodies to devise
sustainable development accounting principles. This almost certainly refers
to the International Accounting Standards Board, which is based in the US
state of Delaware, a well-known corporate “secrecy” jurisdiction. Among other
measures geared heavily to business interests, the board has rejected
country-by-country reporting by transnational corporations, despite the
obvious contributions this would make to fighting corruption and tax evasion. Every section of the zero draft has at
least one mention (often many) to engagement with the private sector: from
unlocking the transformative potential of business, to upping private
investment in agriculture, to encouraging new platforms for private
infrastructure investment, to catalysing private investment with ODA, to
increasing private climate finance, to involving businesses in FfD3 follow-up
and monitoring. This level of “partnership” verges in
the direction of giving states and businesses some level of equivalency in
the quest for sustainable, inclusive development. Yet states remain the
primary duty bearers—they are responsible for the rights of their citizens,
and they will be the ones signing off on both FfD3 and post-2015, not to
mention the numerous intergovernmental agreements that have come before them.
Instead of talking about the private sector as a partner at this stage, maybe
the real issue is determining what specific steps are required to align every
aspect of business and financial sector operations, from the choice to locate
a manufacturing plant to a stock trade, with achieving the SDGs. A Few Good Ideas Transformative, ambitious,
universal—these notions, which began in post-2015, have started to filter
into FfD3, setting a much higher bar than might otherwise be there. Now the
challenge is to take them seriously enough to make them mean something. Also raising the bar at the FfD3 April
negotiations was a representative from the Office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights, who at session after session reminded delegates that the
process must be grounded in universal principles that transcend narrow interests,
national or otherwise. If we talk about an enabling environment for business,
what about an enabling environment for states to uphold people rights? For
people to claim those rights? Another positive development was how
delegates at the April joint session on FfD3 and post-2015 hung on to the
idea of a technology facilitation mechanism by a thread, in the face of
strong opposition by at least one powerful country. Interest in the mechanism
came from all regions. After years of little progress in this area, it’s a
baby step—but still movement forward. Finally, among the IFIs, IMF positions
suggest a new level of rethinking and nuance. Given past history, it is
almost astonishing to hear the IMF refer to post-2015 as a central
institutional priority, as its representative did at the joint session. And
then to discuss how financial markets are key to development, but so is
regulation. Or that foreign capital is not a panacea and needs to be well
used. Or that we should no longer take for granted that it is “natural” for
markets to move up and down at will. Or that international tax cooperation is
key so that developing countries get what they are entitled to. Now of course
the issue is to act consistently in line with these ideas—to be a genuine
partner committed foremost to sustainable, inclusive development that reaches
the entire world. What’s Not on the Agenda? Even before the political debate around
FfD3 began gathering steam, the MDBs had come together around a common agenda
that goes something like this: the needs for financing are huge (trillions),
the public sector will never have enough to meet these needs, therefore, we
have to tap all available resources (private). The mantra has become: public,
private, domestic and international. Yet the notion that the public sector
simply doesn’t have enough money may deserve more scrutiny. Is this about
reality, or anti-government rhetoric? First, it may apply mostly to those
countries struggling with severe underdevelopment or structural constraints.
For other states, and particularly the richer ones, the public sector could
have a lot more funding through progressive taxation, tax cooperation and
curbs on illicit financial flows—plus, for many developing countries,
enhanced domestic capacities to manage economies in line with sustainable and
inclusive development. Tax dodging costs the European Union alone around 1
trillion euros a year—a potentially big contribution to the IFI estimate for
post-2015 costs. And then there is how existing funds are spent—in 2013, the
defence budget of the 10 highest ranked spenders globally reached $1.1
trillion. Second, the public sector in some
countries already has a history of coming up with large sums when it has to.
Within weeks of the 2008 financial crisis, the United States had committed
$700 billion to bail out troubled companies. China injected $600 billion in
fiscal stimulus and called on banks to boost their lending rates, to the
point where by 2009 it faced pressures from inflation. Globally, state-owned financial institutions
account for 25 percent of total banking assets; they include development
banks mandated to provide services otherwise not commercially available.
Nearly 40 percent of these banks have been established in the last two
decades—despite pervasive advocacy for neoliberalism—and as of the end of
2009, they had $2 trillion in assets. The China Development Bank and Brazil
Development Bank both have assets greater than the World Bank Group. Asia and the Pacific as a region has
over $7 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, and around $3 trillion in
sovereign wealth funds, with some questions over why a greater portion of
these have not been channeled more systematically towards development. One
answer: They serve as a buffer against the vicissitudes of an under-regulated,
crisis-prone global economy. Unpacking a Word… Enabling environment used to mean the
international environment enabling poorer countries to develop their domestic
economies through trade, debt relief and so on. That is how the phrase is first
applied in the FfD3 zero draft. But then it moves on to new uses, most of
which apply to the domestic realm. Such as an enabling environment for
infrastructure investment. For private investment. For fiscal policy. For tax
collection. Given the interconnectedness of the global economy, on highly
unfair terms for many countries, how enabling can the domestic environment be
without an equally—or more than equally, through the lens of common but
differentiated responsibility—international environment? What does it mean to have an enabling
environment for fiscal policy if countries are weighed down by debts, forced
to offer tax breaks to transnational corporations, and cornered into
low-value commodity exports? Does private investment really need to be enabled? Unless that
means enabled, by regulation, to contribute to sustainable, inclusive
development… What’s Happening Next Post–2015 negotiations
FfD3 negotiations
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