The first phase of the discussion focuses on food (from 26 August until 7 September) and the second phase will focus on employment (from 9 September until 21 September). The discussion shall be guided by realism and pragmatism, with MDGs’ timeframe in mind (by 2015).

Even though the proportion of people in the world suffering from malnutrition and hunger has fallen since the early 1990s, their number has risen. About 1 billion people suffer from hunger, while at least another estimated 2 billion are undernourished. The decrease in child malnutrition has also been slow; the proportion of children in the developing world who are underweight decreased from 33 to 27 per cent between 1990 and 2005, well short of the target of reducing by half their percentage in 1990. Currently, about 143 million children under 5 years of age in the developing countries suffer from malnutrition, which exacerbates the impact of disease and reduces their health and education potential.

Discussion Phase 1 – Securing the availability and affordability of food

The world food prices crisis has served to highlight, the cumulative neglect of agriculture and rural development over the year and exposed existing and potential vulnerabilities of households, governments and the international system to food and nutrition insecurity.

While risks may be pronounced in urban areas, they are significant in rural areas as well, where globally 75% of the poor reside. Many of the rural poor are smallholder farmers whose capacities to benefit from high food prices are severely constrained by lack of inputs, investment and access to markets.

1. Higher food prices have created a humanitarian emergency that needs. High agricultural commodities’ prices have raised the prospects of investments flowing to agriculture that could benefit small farmers and rural development and turn agriculture into a vibrant economic sector with significant positive effect on food security and poverty. How can we transform subsistence agriculture in order to ensure long-term, sustainable productivity increases and the development of a diversified economic base?
2. Expansion of international trade supported has benefited some countries as well as certain socio-economic groups within countries. However, a large number of poor countries and poor people are being left behind. At the national level, how can we achieve complementarity between promoting agricultural and rural development, reducing hunger and taking advantage of international trade? At the international level, how can greater ‘policy space’ be created for countries to address the uneven sharing of the costs and benefits of global food trade?
3. Women play an important productive role in agrarian societies. They produce most of the food consumed and account for a significant share of the total agricultural production. However, women’s contribution to the welfare and livelihood of rural communities are rarely addressed within existing policy frameworks. What policy measures would ensure that women are active participants in, and benefit from agriculture and rural development?

About a decade ago, the World Commission on Environment and Development, known as the Brundtland Commission, published a report titled ”Our Common Future” which pointed to the risk of economic growth policy to people and our planet if it does not take into consideration the potentials for regeneration of the planet Earth. This Commission, chaired by a Canadian, Jim McNeill, defined sustainable development as development which meets the needs of the present, without compromising the opportunities of the future generations to meet their own needs.

Preserve the planet Earth and hand it over to future generations – a call for responsibility.

A review of documents available so far reflects a mainly “business as usual” approach concerning recommendations to further the MDGs, which provides added importance to follow up by ESCAP and this network of interested parties to ESCAP’s 2007 MDG expert meeting that considered new and additional measures for MDGs process.

For instance, the “background note” for the 25 September high-level event – attached – reflects “dependent and vulnerable” approaches in recommended actions to achieve significant reductions in poverty and improvements in nutrition among the world’s poor.  Paragraph 15 of the “note” states:
” …efforts must . be designed to encompass all categories of the poor, especially the groups or regions that may be particularly disadvantaged or vulnerable. Such groups could include women, children and young people,older persons and persons with disabilities, and groups that often suffer from social exclusion .”.
Missing from the discussion are options to build capacities and reinforce advancement of women and of other social groups in mainstream development as agents and beneficiaries.

In addition, the report of the MDG “gap” task force provides mainly input-based development strategies, much in the vein of the 2005 MDG reports prepared under the direction of Prof. Jeff Sachs, rather than present options by which Governments can make better, more equitable and sustainable use of resources for national development.  There is, moreover, no mention of the critical role that accessibility with reasonable adaptation plays in the provision of infrastructure, services and technologies for broad-based development.

In contrast, discussions organized to prepare for the five-year review of the 2002 Monterey Conference on financing for development (Doha, 29 November- 2 December 2008) do reflect awareness of the role of human resources, social policy and institutional development in sustainable and equitable development; for instance chapter III of the “Monterrey reviews” – attached – addresses such issues as governance and the role of social policy in the mobilization of resources for development.

Much remains to be done,

Clint Rapley,
Director of Planning Services, Associates for International Management Services

written by Christopher Rego – UNESCAP

In order to give strong political support for international efforts to address water and sanitation issues and to highlight the necessity to accelerate efforts to meet the MDG water and sanitation target, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and Tajikistan have organised a side event on water and sanitation in the afternoon of 24^th September 2008 at the UN Trusteeship Council Chamber on the occasion of the High Level Event on the MDGs.

We promote  a thorough commitment by all concerned to reach the water and sanitation targets. Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) are key characteristics as well as determinants of poverty, since the time and money needed to obtain clean water or illness resulting from a lack of water of sanitation keeps people poor. Every year 1.6 million children die of the consequences of diarrhoea, reaching the water and sanitation targets would reduce this with 0.5 million a year. Improving access to safe drinking water and sanitation will increase general health, thus for instance improving maternal health and the condition of patients with HIV/AIDS and Malaria.

Evaluating the progress made so far on the water and sanitation targets, the organisers realised that action had to be taken. Because, although drinking water is on track, some countries lag behind while the sanitation targets will be reached in 2027 if we continue in this pace.

During the side event, political statements will be made by the Heads of State and Government of the four co-organisers (Tajikistan, Japan, the Netherlands and Germany), the United Nations Secretary General and the African Union. Acknowledging the further need for strengthening efforts to implement the international decade for action “Water for Life – 2005-2015” and the efforts taken in this International Year of Sanitation,. The meeting will call for the mobilization of adequate international and national financial resources for the implementation of the national strategies and promote sector wide approaches.

The outcome of the event will be presented at the High Level Round Table discussions on the 25 of September.

Natham Village in Tiruvallur District, Tamil Nadu, South India has been selected to be made a model village for development using ICT Tools. With the success of the initiatives, it is proposed  to scale up and replicate the model all over India.

We seek the support of other international organizations to develop the right content and delivery modules for quickly achieving MDGs.

written by Kris Dev – Life Line To Business – LL2B

Additionally most of the MSM STI/HIV Targeted Intervention (TIs) programmes in India are talking about partner notification for MSM (including their female sexual partners) and involvement of female spouses (wife / girl friend) of MSM – which I think may be helpful in the long run in terms of making those women more aware regarding their health and also regarding their right to make sexual choices (saying no to unsafe sexual acts with their husband). It would be better if women’s empowerment programmes can collaborate with such MSM TIs in encouraging those women (partners of MSM) to talk to their husbands on sexual health related issues.

Another issue which I think is pertinent in this context is the stigma and discrimination faced by feminized men. Such men often face the brunt of gender based discrimination that most societies practice. Men who think women are inferior consider feminized men even more inferior and hence they face even more discrimination, thus curtailing their rights and limiting their access to resources. If programmes for Transgender people collaborated with women’s empowerment programmes then they would be able to more strongly advocate for reduction of gender based stigma and discrimination.

written by Anupam Hazra – Solidarity And Action Against The HIV Infection In India (SAATHII)

While important progress has been achieved in several areas significant gaps remain in the delivery of the commitments made by member states. At the request of the UN Secretary General, the MDG Gap Task Force prepared a report – Delivering on the Global Partnership for Achieving the MDGs – aimed to track international commitments on aid, trade, debt and to follow progress on access to essential medicines and technology. It identifies the areas where additional actions still need to be taken.

Discussion Phase 1

Large debt relief to the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries exemplifies the contribution that a strong partnership for development can make to increase investments for human development. In other areas, however, there is an urgent need to strengthen the global partnership for development by closing some of the remaining gaps. In particular:

1. Increasing ODA by 18 billion dollars a year in order to meet the 2010 target set at the G-8 Summit in Gleneagles in 2005.
2. Re-commencing trade negotiations immediately to reverse the damage made by their recent collapse on the promise to give a development focus to trade negotiations
3. Improving access to essential quality medicines, especially in the public sector, to make them available to the poor
4. Accelerating the diffusion of new technologies for development and increase investment in infrastructure, especially electricity

Questions/Issues:

1. What should be done to close these gaps? In the coming weeks we would like to stimulate debate on what can be done to move the international community to live up to their commitments.
2. The first focus is on aid. Over the past two years aid (after correcting for inflation) decreased, while at the same time demands for additional assistance have been increasing in order to allow countries to address new challenges, including support to overcome the food crisis and meet the climate change challenges. What more can be done to convince the donor community to accelerate their follow through on commitments?
3. How can aid be made more effective to support achievement of the MDGs?

Worldwide, under-five mortality declined from 93 to 72 deaths per 1,000 live births between 1990 and 2006. Nevertheless, in 62 countries, under-five mortality is not declining fast enough to meet the Millennium Development Goal 4 target of reducing by two thirds the mortality rate for children under 5 years of age. The reduction of maternal mortality also remains a challenging task; the Millennium Development Goal 5 target of reducing the maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters between 1990 and 2015 is the area of least progress among all the MDGs. In many countries, malnutrition, and lack of access to quality primary health care and basic infrastructure, including water and sanitation, continue to be major causes of ill health and death among mothers and children. Having fewer pregnancies and spacing births increase the survival rate of both women and their children, underscoring the importance of the Millennium Development Goal target of universal access to reproductive health.

Infectious diseases continue to inflict a huge burden on developing countries. Globally, about 33 million people were living with HIV/AIDS in 2007. Malaria causes 1 million deaths annually along with 300-500 million episodes of illness. Sub-Saharan Africa bears a disproportionate share of the burden of both these diseases. Affordable access to essential medicines in developing countries is far from adequate. Concerns about global health have sparked a large increase in donor funding since 2000. International health partnerships and funds, such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, are an increasingly important mechanism to pool and channel public and private funds.

MDG 7, target 3 stresses the importance of adequate water and sanitation for sustainable development. They are also vital inputs to improving health, although they are generally outside the purview of the health sector. Current trends suggest that the world may meet the drinking water target, but not that for sanitation.

Issues

1. Strengthening health care systems, including sustainable funding, human resource training, improvement of aid effectiveness and harmonization with country priorities.
2. Provision of integrated services – primary care, reproductive health, continuum of care for mothers and children, HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, child health and malaria interventions.
3. Strategies to meet the needs of vulnerable populations, especially rural populations and the urban poor.
4. Infrastructure needs for health care, water and sanitation.
5. Affordable access to essential medicines in developing countries.

Global cooperation is essential to combat climate change. The costs of inaction are very unevenly distributed, with poor, vulnerable countries bearing the greatest burden while having contributed little to the problem. The long-lasting effects of greenhouse gas emissions compound the problem, as current generations may bear the costs of urgent climate change mitigation actions, but future generations are the main beneficiaries.

1. How can we strengthen the knowledge base of decision making relating to conserving the natural resource base?
2. What policies and institutions can help societies value more accurately ecosystems and their services?
3. What measures, actions and/or commitments should countries be expected to make to combat climate change (e.g., on lifestyle changes, technology development and transfer, financing, capacity building) and how should these commitments be implemented and enforced?
4. What measures, actions and/or commitments should be expected from the private sector to combat climate change (e.g. corporate social responsibility)?