Dear friends,
You may be interested in our recent issue of the South Bulletin focusing on the big UN process on formulating Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and at the same time trying to decide on the UN’s Post-2015 Development Agenda. These are the two issues that will dominate the agenda of the UN’s economic and social work in the next couple of years.
The SDGs emerged from the Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development held in Rio, Brazil last year. That Summit asked the General Assembly to come up with a set of SDGs that would hopefully enable the world to focus on what priority goals to work towards in the future. A UN working group has now met three times to discuss the conceptual framework as well as issues like poverty, food security, agriculture, drought and water. This week it is meeting on employment and health.
This issue of the South Bulletin gives you a lot of information and analysis of the Development Agenda and the SDGs, from the South perspective.
The South Centre has been very active in this area, and we publish our various papers on this:
• Post 2015 Development Agenda and Sustainable Development – a broad analysis of what we need, by the Centre’s Chief Economist Yılmaz Akyüz
• SDGs: Overall Conceptual Framework – the South Centre’s overview paper on how the SDGs should be treated
• SDGs, poverty eradication; food security and sustainable
agriculture -- 2 brief South Centre papers on these 2 crucial issues
• The G77 position on SDGs overall, and on Food and Agriculture and on Poverty
Another Rio+20 follow up issue is the setting up of a new institution to implement sustainable development --- known as the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF). It will replace the present Commission on Sustainable Development. A debate is now taking place in the UN on what the HLPF will do and how it will function. The Bulletin gives the South Centre view on this Forum.
The G77 and China held an Eminent Personalities of the South meeting in Fiji -- attended by many Presidents and Prime Ministers, from South Pacific island states and Bolivia, and by other personalities. The Bulletin gives two reports on this meeting, which had focused on the problems facing the South and on South-South cooperation.
This issue also makes a comment on the rise of solar energy and how this may be threatened by trade actions, like the tariffs slapped on Chinese solar panels by the US and European Commission. Read our article on how Solar Trade Wars Threaten the Fight Against Climate Change.
There is a report on the appeal by the Chairman of the South Centre, Mr. Benjamin Mkapa, former Tanzanian President, to the European Union to change its position on the Economic Partnership Agreements being negotiated with African countries. Such EPAs will damage the African economies and African integration, argues the Chairman.
Finally, the South Centre’s economic advisor, Manuel Montes, has a think piece on lessons from the MDG experience and why the MDGs have to be “de-colonised”, in the next stage of the Development Agenda.
We hope you enjoy this issue of South Bulletin. Please
write to us to give your views on the articles or on the Bulletin as a whole!
With best wishes,
Martin Khor
Executive Director, South Centre and
Editor, South Bulletin
To download the entire South Bulletin, please click here . To download individual articles, please see below.
You may be interested in our recent issue of the South Bulletin focusing on the big UN process on formulating Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and at the same time trying to decide on the UN’s Post-2015 Development Agenda. These are the two issues that will dominate the agenda of the UN’s economic and social work in the next couple of years.
The SDGs emerged from the Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development held in Rio, Brazil last year. That Summit asked the General Assembly to come up with a set of SDGs that would hopefully enable the world to focus on what priority goals to work towards in the future. A UN working group has now met three times to discuss the conceptual framework as well as issues like poverty, food security, agriculture, drought and water. This week it is meeting on employment and health.
This issue of the South Bulletin gives you a lot of information and analysis of the Development Agenda and the SDGs, from the South perspective.
The South Centre has been very active in this area, and we publish our various papers on this:
• Post 2015 Development Agenda and Sustainable Development – a broad analysis of what we need, by the Centre’s Chief Economist Yılmaz Akyüz
• SDGs: Overall Conceptual Framework – the South Centre’s overview paper on how the SDGs should be treated
• SDGs, poverty eradication; food security and sustainable
agriculture -- 2 brief South Centre papers on these 2 crucial issues
• The G77 position on SDGs overall, and on Food and Agriculture and on Poverty
Another Rio+20 follow up issue is the setting up of a new institution to implement sustainable development --- known as the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF). It will replace the present Commission on Sustainable Development. A debate is now taking place in the UN on what the HLPF will do and how it will function. The Bulletin gives the South Centre view on this Forum.
The G77 and China held an Eminent Personalities of the South meeting in Fiji -- attended by many Presidents and Prime Ministers, from South Pacific island states and Bolivia, and by other personalities. The Bulletin gives two reports on this meeting, which had focused on the problems facing the South and on South-South cooperation.
This issue also makes a comment on the rise of solar energy and how this may be threatened by trade actions, like the tariffs slapped on Chinese solar panels by the US and European Commission. Read our article on how Solar Trade Wars Threaten the Fight Against Climate Change.
There is a report on the appeal by the Chairman of the South Centre, Mr. Benjamin Mkapa, former Tanzanian President, to the European Union to change its position on the Economic Partnership Agreements being negotiated with African countries. Such EPAs will damage the African economies and African integration, argues the Chairman.
Finally, the South Centre’s economic advisor, Manuel Montes, has a think piece on lessons from the MDG experience and why the MDGs have to be “de-colonised”, in the next stage of the Development Agenda.
We hope you enjoy this issue of South Bulletin. Please
write to us to give your views on the articles or on the Bulletin as a whole!
With best wishes,
Martin Khor
Executive Director, South Centre and
Editor, South Bulletin
To download the entire South Bulletin, please click here . To download individual articles, please see below.
- Post-2015 Development Agenda and Sustainable
Development - South Centre Paper on Sustainable Development Goals - SDGs: Overall Conceptual Framework
- South Centre Paper on Sustainable Development Goals - SDGs: Poverty Eradication
- South Centre Paper on Sustainable Development Goals - SDGs: Food security and sustainable agriculture
- G77: Each SDG Must Include International
Dimension - G77 on Food and Agriculture: Subsidies of Rich Countries and Commodity Speculation Must Be Curbed
- G77 on SDGs and Poverty Eradication
- South Centre Paper on Rio+20 Issue: Elements We Should Have in the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF)
- Development-led Globalization Requires De-colonizing the MDGs
- South Political Leaders Brainstorm South-South Cooperation in Fiji Meeting
- South Centre’s Views on South-South
Cooperation - Solar Trade Wars Threaten the Fight Against Climate Change
- South Centre Chairperson Calls for Re-thinking of Europe’s Trade Pact with Africa
