Outcomes of the UN MDG Summit (20-22nd Sep 2010)

Panel Discussion - 25th October 2010

Introduction

My name is Carolina Gottardo and I am the Head of Policy and Advocacy at One World Action, We work with local partners in Asia, Africa, Latin America andEastern Europe mainly in the areas of women’s rights, participatory governance and social exclusion. We work on policy, advocacy and campaigning activities mainly in the UK and Europe. We are very active in policy work at the European level and as a member of the steering group of the European Policy Group at Bond, I find the contributions of the group and the possibility of doing things jointly, invaluable for our work. Today, I have been asked to talk about the outcomes of the MDG Summit. The review summit held last month in New Yorkaimed to establish the successes, best practices, lessons learned, obstacles and gaps related to the MDGs from the last 10 years, in order to assist the final push to meet the MDGs by 2015.

The outcomes of the summit have been both praised and criticised by international civil society. Due to the limited time, I will briefly analyse the outcomes from the summit in general, then concentrate on the outcomes at the European leveland finally talk a little bit about the situation regarding gender equality and the outcomes from the perspective of the most marginalised women and men before passing the floor to my colleagues that will concentrate on the issue of policy coherence for development.

As a result of the Summit a UN Draft Resolution or the so called outcome document was adopted entitled: Keeping the promise: united to achieve the Millennium Development Goals”

The outcome document is full of nice words and promises but not followed with concrete commitments.

  • It establishes that the multiple crises won’t deter countries in their efforts to achieve the MDGs
  • It has a strong rights based and gender sensitive language
  • It emphasises the importance of national ownership and leadership by developing partners
  • It recognises that the MDGs are interconnected and mutually reinforcing
  • It calls for increased efforts to enhance policy coherence for development across a wide range of economic, social and environmental issues for sustainable development
  • It recognises that ECOSOC is the main organisation in charge of following up the MDGs and establishes that the Secretary General should report annually on progress towards the achievement of the MDGs and that a special event in 2013 should be organised to analyse progress on the MDGs

Globally, one of the most significant outcomes from the MDG review summit was the commitment to improving maternal health, the most off-track MDG. This is to be achieved via the Secretary General’s Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health. Over 40 billion dollars in resources have been pledged over the next 5 years by governments, as well as the private sector, foundations and civil society. Targets include preventing 33 million unwanted pregnancies and preventing 570,000 women dying of complications relating to pregnancy or childbirth. However, the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health is one of the few concrete commitments from the Summit.

Unfortunately the nice language of the outcome document is not followed by concrete and tangible actions. The Summit also failed to identify binding accountability mechanismsfor Governments to achieve their MDG Commitments. The outcome document almost looks like a “shopping list”, long on promises and short on details and contains few of the practical agreements needed to realise the MDGs by their 2015 target if we want tobe serious about them.

Therefore theresponse from global civil society was that the Summit had been largely disappointing. It was felt that the commitment to the MDGs has waned amongst some countries, and targets for meeting the goals have not been redoubled, as needed. The reaction has been similar from UK civil society. It is widely felt that the resultant action plan is strong on rhetoric but weak on commitment’.

The role of the EU and some highlights from MS

In June, EU leaders met to agree a plan on the MDGs, where they decided to focus on the goals that are most off-track and in the regions that are progressing the least.They also maintainedEU's commitment to meet the 0.7% GNI target by 2015, as well as to assess progress on this every year.

As the world’s leading donor, there were high expectations on the role that the EU could play at the Summit.

There were positives and negatives. There were a number of commitments made by European governments which should be highlighted:

  • President Sarkozy played a leadership role by calling for a global financial transaction tax to raise money for development.He also promised to push the financial transaction tax agenda during his presidency of the G8 & G20 next year. The tax would provide a new pool of aid money to fund the Millennium Development Goals.“It could deliver up to $400 billion annually and complement European aid budgets, allowing the EU to target specific initiatives where there has been less progress.
  • Sarkozy also announced a 20% increase in the French contribution to the Global Fund to fight Aids, tuberculosis and malaria in the coming three years, for a total $1.4 billion.
  • The Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero has also called for a tax on the financial sector to raise money for development and called for innovative mechanisms of financing and for fighting tax evasion in developing countries. Zapatero alsoreinstated Spain’s commitment to reach 0.7% by 2015 despite the recent cuts to the development budget and emphasized the importance of policy coherence and ensuring that all policies contribute to development and poverty eradication.
  • Belgium supported the financial transaction taxand pledged€400,000 for the UN conference on least developed countries to take place in Turkey in 2011.
  • The UK pledged to double the number of maternal, newborn and children’s lives saved by 2015. The target is to save the lives of at least 50,000 women in pregnancy and childbirth, 250,000 newborn babies and enable 10 million couples to access modern methods of family planning, by 2015. To achieve this, the UK will double its support for maternal, newborn and child health by 2012, and sustain that level to 2015.
  • The UK will also increase funding to combat malaria in 10 African countries in order to halve deaths by malaria in those countries, namely Zambia and Ghana and others that have not been decided.
  • Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has also reiterated Britain’s aim to guarantee aid levels of 0.7% of GNI by 2013.

Regarding EC commitments:

  • President Barroso, speaking on behalf of the European Commission, announced its € 1 billion MDG Initiative, focusing on those goals where there has been least progress and in those countries that are most lagging behind including fragile and conflict states. He also said that aid is only a catalyst not a cureand emphasized the importance of partners taking charge of their own development.

European civil society expressed disappointment at the failure of the majority of EU member states to meet their aid commitments, particularly Germany, France and Italy. It is clear that EU countries must deliver on the commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on development aid by 2015 if the MDGs have any hopes of being achieved. However despite the promises this prospect remains unrealistic.

Regarding the European MDG initiative unfortunately it remains very vague in terms of objectives and target countries and it is feared that different members states will be pulling in different ways to push their own agendas and that the initiative might therefore become ineffective for having a real impact in the lives of poor men and women around the world.

Analysing the outcomes from a gendered perspective and from the perspective of the most marginalised women and men

The outcome document recognises that gender equality and the empowerment of women are a key development goal and an important means to achieve all the other MDGs. Equally it recognises that there has been slow progress on this area. In this sense,the commitment by the UK Government to put women at the heart of their development agenda has been welcomed.

In terms of some less-positive outcomes on this area:

- The heavy focus on maternal health has returned the focus on gender back to women solely as mothers rather than to women’s as key economic and political actors essential to the achievement of all the MDGs

-No clear indicators for measuring gender equality have been identified and no dedicated resources for strengthening women's leadership and political empowerment have been allocated despite strong evidence that investing in women's leadership has proven to have a catalytic impact on reducing poverty and inequality. Equally there is scant mention to the importance of ending impunity regarding violence against women.

- Regarding the most discriminated women and men, detailed plans or strategies to target the most ‘hard-to-reach’ groupswere not outlined in the report. This is a gap in the MDGs that One World Action feels very strongly about, and one that needs to be tackled if the MDGs are likely of being reached. There has been a failure to identify actions to address the discrimination faced by the most marginalized people including people with disabilities, minorities, indigenous peoples and migrants.

-In short, similar to my earlier comments, amajor concern is the absence of any political and financial commitments towards the most discriminated women and men. Strong language around tackling gender inequality and eliminating social exclusion and discrimination is not followed through with tangible actions or commitments to new resources.

Conclusion

The UN Summit largely failed to recognise the urgency and focus still required if the MDGs are to be met by 2015.The focus on maternal health was warmly welcomed but was also well overdue.

Many of the advances made in the last 10 years have been undone by the global multiple crises. Therefore, greater urgency was required from all governments, particularly European Governments and the EC, to make up for loses. The support shown by European governments towards introducing the financial transaction taxwas promising. The important thing now is to follow this support with action.

The lack of actions, coupled with the absence of clear and binding accountability mechanisms to hold world leaders to account for full implementation of the goals, has resulted in an Outcome Document which fundamentally lacks teeth.

In terms of the EC and Member Stateskeeping promises, accountability mechanisms and concrete actions are required if the MDGs are going to be achieved. Equally it’s key to mention policy coherence for development if true impact is expected for the world’s poorest women and men. The EU can’t continue undoing with one hand what it does with the other. The external impacts of trade, migration, security and agriculture policy can’t continue undermining development efforts, otherwise we won’t get anywhere in terms of the MDGs.