As one of the most important global players in the field of development with more than 160 country offices around the world, UNDP acknowledges the growing role of the middle income countries as emerging new donors. In the context of post-2015 agenda, the Busan conference (2011) highlighted the importance of South-South cooperation in the field of development and the increasing role of MICs, both as ODA recipients and donors.

In order to find out more on this topic, we interviewed Ms Anca Stoica who works for the UNDP Regional Center for Europe and Central Asia, serving as Romanian ODA Project Manager. 

Alexandra: The UNDP has been in Romania for over 40 years now. Anca, what are the main development areas in which the UNDP has played an important role in this country?

Anca: That is correct, the UNDP established a Country Office in Bucharest 42 years ago, in 1972, and it was actually the first UNDP office to function in a former Warsaw Pact state. That was nearly two decades before other offices opened in neighboring countries. After Romania’s 1989 Revolution, UNDP assumed a dynamic role as a partner of the Government and civil society. For over 25 years, it has identified gaps and areas of vulnerability in human development, it has demonstrated local solutions to these challenges, and has helped integrate strategies in government programmes.

From the beginning, the UNDP country programmes had focused on assisting Romania to establish national capacities in three core areas: strengthening democratic governance, reducing poverty and deepening social inclusion, and protecting the environment. Our main objective has been to align the country programmes to Romania’s national priorities linked to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and EU integration, and at the same time to stay close to the UNDP corporate priorities of fighting poverty, protecting the environment and building democratic societies.

In fighting poverty and deepening social inclusion in Romania, for instance, the UNDP has implemented programmes that tackled the social inclusion of Roma citizens, the challenges faced by people with disabilities, young people leaving institutional care, women and other potentially disadvantaged groups. These measures have helped to address labor market imbalances, reduce the impact of economic downturn and build civic activism. To protect the environment, the UNDP has critically contributed to improvements in national laws, practices and strategies on issues concerning biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation and energy efficiency. Cross-border measures have been geared towards expanding sub-regional cooperation in managing natural resources. Also, in deepening democratic governance, the UNDP has helped Romania to strengthen an independent and effective judicial and administrative system properly equipped for fighting corruption, so necessary for sound public finances and well rooted socio-economic development. It has also supported institutions like the Permanent Electoral Authority, to develop its capacities to organize independent, free and fair elections for Romania.

Alexandra: The UNDP has taken a leading role in local coordination efforts of advocacy, monitoring and implementation of MDGs. Taking into account your professional experience within the UNDP, can you describe UNDP’s role in supporting new ODA donors (such as Romania since its integration in the EU) in their efforts of tackling the MDGs? 

Anca: Interest in Official Development Assistance (ODA) has increased drastically over the last 15 years and this has been largely generated by the international attention towards the MDGs. The UN Millennium Declaration had explicitly recognized the role of ODA in the development process and stated that a substantial increase in ODA, among others, is greatly needed to achieve the MDGs. In this context, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has a formal mandate to help turn into reality the “Global Partnership for Development Cooperation” agreed upon in Busan and the MDG 8. It also assumed a big role in promoting development cooperation between emerging donor countries and recipient countries and in strengthening the new ODA donors’ capacities to effectively deliver development assistance. Moreover, the UNDP is an important partner for and facilitator of transition experience sharing and South-South development cooperation, providing structures and frameworks for innovative partnerships such as triangular initiatives.

Alexandra: How would you evaluate the implication and support of UNDP Romania in strengthening the capacity of local NGOs in implementing ODA projects and programs?

Anca: Legislation shortcomings in Romania are preventing the MFA in granting ODA funds directly to civil society organizations. This is the main reason for which our organization had to step in and help the MFA channel the funds through the UNDP programme frameworks. However, this context has enabled us to strengthen the partnership and work with NGOs and to support their capacity building efforts along the way. We have involved NGO partners in most of the UNDP capacity building initiatives, we have boosted the use of results based management at a larger scale in Romania and we have used our UNDP network of country offices and regional centers to support and facilitate the Romanian NGOs’ transition experience sharing with civil society in our ODA partner countries.

Alexandra: Drawing from the UNDP’s experience in leveraging its core competencies for the achievement of MDGs, which are the lessons learnt for the international development agenda after 2015?

Anca: First of all, we should stress once more that the implementation of the MDGs is still fundamental, despite the significant progress that has been achieved so far. The MDGs have proven to be a very powerful instrument in creating a shared global vision and development framework to address poverty and advance human development. Nevertheless, their implementation has generated during the last 15 years important lessons for the international community. For instance, the MDGs did not really have a focus on good governance issues, thus failing to tackle important areas of development such as the fight against corruption and public service delivery which are important enablers of poverty reduction efforts. Also, the MDGs did not adequately address issues of social protection, inequalities and complexities related to demographic dynamics, peace and security and human rights. Nor did they consider the vulnerability to natural hazards or to other external socks which has caused setbacks in MDG achievements overall. But all these lessons seem to have been well learned by the international community that is now more committed than ever to fix remaining challenges within the new framework of the Sustainable Development Goals.

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Anca Stoica, the Romanian ODA Project Manager, is responsible for the implementation of the New ODA Cooperation Partnership with Romania, providing overall technical support to the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the development assistance project planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Moreover, she provides partnership and project development services in view of supporting Romania’s South-South cooperation efforts and its contribution to the global development cooperation scene. Anca joined the UNDP in 2007, having previously worked for the UNDP Romania Country Office as a Programme Manager for the Democratic Governance Portfolio. In this position she has contributed to the build up and implementation of two UNDP Country Programmes in Romania by providing strategic advice, conducting analysis of the development situation, designing concept notes/projects and mobilizing financial resources for the successful delivery of developmental results. Anca’s experience in project management spans a diversity of thematic areas, from development cooperation and electoral assistance to public administration and rule of law. She holds a B.A in Political Science at the University of Bucharest and a Master Degree in Political Science and International Relations at the same university.

A retrospect for the Millenium Development Goals. What has been done so far?

(by Alexandra Sabou)

Two cross-cutting topics in the field of international development concern both the governmental and the non-governmental sector and the academia: firstly, the evaluation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) due to expire at the end of 2015 and secondly, the formulation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the post-2015 agenda designed to guide our efforts until 2030. For more than a decade already, the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have galvanized opinions and raised criticisms around the methods of improving our living conditions and ending poverty in the world. Following the 2000 Millennium Declaration put forward by the former Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, the MDGs were supposed to represent the crafted framework for promoting normative transformation in the global society. It is worth to mention that since their very beginning, they were meant to express ends for development, not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ recipe to solve the humankind problems put down on paper and unanimously recognized by all the UN members (Vandermoortele 2012, 8) . They have set a global call for improvement in order to halve extreme poverty (MDG 1), reduce child and maternal mortality (MDG 4, MDG 5) , combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases (MDG 6), promote  gender equality (MDG 3), environmental sustainability  (MDG 7) and universal primary education (MDG 2). Beneath the eight goals stay several quantitative targets and many dozen indicators that are supposed to orient the actions and reactions of all the actors involved in the process. However, despite the fact that the eight cartoons or drawings that illustrate our prospects seem to universalize the targets, in some cases it is still very hard to set the bar too high and expect for quick and sustainable results.

The goals are about to expire on December 31, 2015 and the debate on what should come next is extremely provocative and effervescent at the global scale. Prior to come up with new recommendations for the post-2015 agenda, the world community should evaluate what has already been done.
Over the years, the international community has embraced several goals and campaigns aimed to reach several development goals, variously defined. For example, the UN campaigns ‘Education for All’ (1978) and ‘Health for All’ (1990) aimed to achieve universal primary education and access to healthcare by 2000 (McGillivray 2008, 1). Another very similar set of objectives were the International Development Goals (IDGs) set by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) within OECD, endorsed by the World Bank, IMF and UN in June 2000. However, the major difference between these campaigns aiming to set global objectives and the MDGs stays in the already worldwide recognized interdependent character of the latter. The MDGs were not set as a monolithic policy with a definite budget and a specific mapping out of responsibilities. Instead, they were supposed to function as a partnership between developed and developing countries, as it was stated in the declaration adopted by the General Assembly during the Millennium Summit held in New-York on 6-8 September 2000: “Only through broad and sustained efforts to create a shared future based upon our common humanity in all its diversity, can globalization be made fully inclusive and equitable” (UN General Assembly 2001). The Declaration itself is much broader than the eight MDGs and contains inter alia other commitments to key principles and values (i.e. freedom, tolerance, equality, solidarity, respect for nature, etc.) that should intrinsically go together with the goals to achieve wellbeing outcomes in all developing countries.

They were all reiterated on the ‘Road Map Towards the Implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration’ (UN General Assembly 2001) presented by Kofi Annan:

In practical terms, the MDGs have been officially launched as a mutually agreed-on partnership between developed and developing countries in March 2002, during the UN International Conference on Financing for Development held in Monterrey, Mexico, where world leaders highlighted the crucial importance of the ODA (the Official Development Assistance set at 0.70 percent of Gross National Income (GNI) of developed countries, compared to an average of 0.22 percent of GNI given to aid in 2000). Used wisely, aid is crucial if it is transferred to real investments (schools, hospitals, infrastructure, sanitation, etc.); however, the aid target of 0.7 percent was unlikely to be achieved considering the economic crisis affecting developed countries as well and the amount of debt forgiveness and humanitarian aid that are also part of the donor efforts. According to the latest reports (United Nation, The MDGs reports from 2013, 2014), in 2013 the ODA represented 0.3 percent of developed countries’ GNI and the US, the UK, Germany, France and Japan were the largest donors.  Only Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Luxembourg managed to exceed the ODA target of 0.7 percent of their GNI. Nonetheless, despite several critiques that address the architecture of the ODA and the real costs and commitments to the MDGs, the ‘little’ that has been done gives hope or, at least, provides us with analysis and substantial lessons for the new framework that is about to be established starting with 2016.

What has been done so far? 

(Sources: The MDGs Report, (United Nations 2014) and The Global Monitoring Report 2014/2015: Ending Poverty and Sharing Prosperity (World Bank 2014.).

Sustainable Development Goals: What now?

(by Adela Militaru)

Efforts of the international community to ambitiously meet the indicators of the MDGs until 2015 have generated a considerable progress so far, by engaging and mobilizing world leaders to adhere to the common development agenda which was readopted at the Rio +20 Summit in June 2012. The outcome document of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, “The future we want”, builds on the MDGs – their structure, the mechanisms of their implementation, the challenges faced, and the lessons learned¹, serving as a solid foundation to be integrated in the post-2015 development agenda. Its vision specifically highlights three dimensions standing at the core of sustainable development: economic, social and environmental sustainability. These dimensions are the driving forces behind the 17 SDGs, elaborated by the Open Working Group of the General Assembly on Sustainable Development Goals², which are ready to be adopted in September 2015, at the UN Summit in New York. In the next section, we shall take a closer look at the advancements proposed by the SDGs under these three dimensions, as a renewed commitment of the international community towards achieving the vision of a world that is “just, equitable and inclusive” (UN Open Working Group Proposal for SDGs).

SDGs and a world of development

The most crucial indicator of achieving economic sustainability, now standing out as “the single, most urgent task in all of the interconnected challenges of sustainable development”, is the eradication of extreme poverty (Sachs, 2014, p.482). As a legacy of the MDGs, the post-2015 development agenda strives to keep one of the fundamental promises that the UN has made to humanity: to end poverty, in all its forms, everywhere. It then comes as no surprise that this is the exact formulation of Goal 1, which is reinforced by Goal 2: end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. Both these goals rely on the need for sustained economic growth and inclusive economic policies, of which employment creation is a precondition that remains in focus under the post-2015 agenda (see ILO, 2009; Melamed & Scott, 2011). To such end, several initiatives have been put in place, such as the International Labor Organization’s Decent Work Agenda, which encourages full and productive employment, decent working conditions, and social protection as cumulative measures for sustainable economic growth. These propositions are subsumed in Goal 8.

What seems to be a special focus of the post-2015 development agenda, under both the economic and environmental dimensions, is the role of current consumption and production patterns to ensure the sustainable management of global resources, which include the conservation of oceans, seas and marine resources (Goal 14), as well as terrestrial ecosystems, to halt biodiversity loss (Goal 15). The need for sustainable consumption and production has been highlighted under Goal 12. This goal is nonetheless mutually reinforcing with several other goals which promote environmental awareness and sustainability, as scientific evidence on the impact of industrialization on climate change is increasingly alerting the international community.

It is now a shared responsibility of multiple stakeholders, ranging from governments to civil society and businesses, to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts, as set forth in Goal 13, and in doing so, to build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation (Goal 9). Therefore, it is our common challenge to enhance our capacity to innovate our current economic, social and environmental practices, in order to propose achievable measures to support sustainable development for all, that are able to encompass the needs to ensure availability of water and sanitation for all (Goal 6), as well as access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all (Goal 7). As the experience of implementing the MDGs has taught us, this endeavor is not bound to be easily achievable.

So far, the measures discussed have seen the economic and environmental dimensions at work, in the formulation of their corresponding goals. With regards to the social development aspect, we are still faced with profound discrepancies between the world’s inhabitants, despite the evolution based on the previous MDG agenda under some of these aspects. As posited by Goal 10, one of the post-2015 priorities for achieving sustainable development is to reduce inequality within and among countries, while at the same time making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable (Goal 11).

To this end, the SDGs bring significant advancements as compared to the previous MDG approach, insomuch as they incorporate some important suggestions of the critics of MDGs, who point out that concepts of equity and equality had been insufficiently addressed by the former Millennium agenda (Fehling et al., 2013). Generally, we can see an important paradigm shift whereby the process of elaboration of the SDGs responded to previous critical voices concerning the MDG’s limited approach to incorporating important human rights, reported by some voices as “missing targets” of the MDGs, i.e. decent work, governance, and peace and security (Melamed & Scott, 2011). In the same note of improvement, Goals 3 and 4 also seem to bring added value by aiming to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, and ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, respectively.

Clearly, the focus has moved from very specific targets to overarching measures promoting well-being, which indeed appear as more equitable and inclusive than their previous counterparts. Equality also continues to lie at the core of the post-2015 development agenda, and it appears as no surprise that achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls (Goal 5) should continue to represent a crucial target for social development. In order to secure all these advancements, it is fundamental to build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels, which prove enough resourceful in order to promote peaceful and inclusive societies and provide access to justice for all (Goal 16). In this respect, it also proves decisive to strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development (Goal 17).

The value(s) of SDGs

Based on all previous advancements and reports of the past years, in 2013 the UN Secretary General published a report entitled “A life of dignity for all”. Dignity as a leading value in the fight against extreme poverty seems to be a fundamental milestone when speaking about the advancement of the post-2015 development agenda. In fact, at a closer look, what all SDGs seem to have in common is a value system that incorporates core values such as freedom, equality, peace, good governance, and respect for human rights and for nature. Achieving sustainability in ensuring a just and inclusive world is a commitment made by multiple stakeholders, not only for our own benefit, but also for that of future generations.

Many important directions which helped draft the current Sustainable Development Goals have emerged from the continuous interaction of science and policy, particularly through the mobilization of epistemic communities (or knowledge communities), described by Sachs (2014). However, having the knowledge on how sustainable development could be achieved is no guarantee in itself: as stated in the prototype Global Sustainable Development Report (2014), political will remains a necessary precondition for the successful implementation of any of the measures developed with a view to facilitate the enactment of the SDGs. Naturally, achieving long-term success of such complex agenda of sustainable development requires policy coherence on a large scale (UN Prototype Report, 2014), which in turn requires the condition of good governance (Sachs, 2014).

Therefore, the current value of the Sustainable Development Goals, as part of the post-2015 development agenda, lies in concentrating available knowledge, know-how, and long-term commitment from all sectors and stakeholders. All of these cannot be translated into achievable measures in the absence of political will, nor of good governance. But what we now know is that the SDGs are offering the world a common vision of the process of achieving sustainable development, in order to keep its promise of ensuring a life of dignity and well-being to all people, for generations to come.

References

Melamed, C., Scott, L. (2011). After 2015: progress and challenges for development, Background Note. Overseas Development Institute available from <http://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/7061.pdf>, last accessed November 23, 2014.

Sachs, J.D. (2014). Chapter 14: Sustainable Development Goals. In The Age of Sustainable Development. pp. 481-512 Columbia University Press Online Access, available from <http://cupola.columbia.edu/age-of-sustainable-development/493>, last accessed November 23, 2014.

Fehling, M., Nelson, B., Venkatapuram. S. (2013). Limitations of the Millennium Development Goals: a literature review, available from  <www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3877943>, last accessed November 23, 2014.

McGillivray, M. (2008). Achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Palgrave, London.

United Nations (2014). Prototype Global Sustainable Development Report. Online unedited edition. New York: United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, available from <sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/1454Prototype%20Global%20SD%20Report.pdf>, last accessed November 23, 2014.

United Nations General Assembly Sept. 2001. Road map towards the implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration: report of the Secretary-General, UN Document no. A756/326. New York, available from <http://www.un.org/documents/ga/docs/56/a56326.pdf>, last accessed November 23, 2014.

United Nations (2014). The Millennium Development Goals Report, available from <http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2014%20MDG%20report/MDG%202014%20English%20web.pdf>, last accessed November 23, 2014.

The World Bank Group Flagship Report (2014). Ending Poverty and Sharing Responsability, available from  <http://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/gmr/gmr2014/GMR_2014_Full_Report.pdf>, last accessed November 23, 2014

Vandermoortele, J. (2012). Advancing the UN Development Agenda Post-2015: Some Practical Suggestions, available from <http://www.wssinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/resources/DESA—post-2015-paper—Vandemoortele.pdf>, last accessed November 23, 2014.

¹ Review of the contributions of the MDG Agenda to foster development: Lessons for the post-2015 UN development agenda, Discussion Note. UN system task team on the post-2015 development agenda, available from < www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/mdg_assessment_Aug.pdf>, last accessed November 23, 2014.

²Open Working Group proposal for Sustainable Development Goals , for an overview, see <sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgsproposal.html>, document available at undocs.org/A/68/970, last accessed November 23, 2014.

Photo credits:

“Above, people carry drinking water in Bangladesh. ” by Mohammad Rakibul Hasan, UNDP.

This paper aims to examine two different scales of trade union action, i.e. global and local, and to assess which of them is more relevant in counteracting the challenges brought up by the current fundamentally capitalist global economic structure. The question to be answered is: given the challenges facing trade unions in the 21^st century, which scale or level, i.e. global or local, bears more salience or importance in terms of trade union strategies and engagements? The subsequent hypothesis entails no clear answer, but rather that the outcome of every endeavor depends on a “coterie of contingencies” (Herod, 2001: 407) and that sometimes local focused actions in strategic points of an MNC might prove more (or equally) suitable than trying to act on a bigger scale.

The article is divided into three main parts: first, a short description of the subject and the aim of the paper; second, an introduction to the state of the union movement in the 21^st century, emphasizing some of the most important challenges brought up by globalization, followed by the classification of trade union action scales, providing a case-study for each of them in order to analyze the specific conditions of every situation and a couple of lessons and insights drawn from this analysis; and third, a short comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy level.

Read more: Trade Unions and Globalization – a changing paradigm_Cristian Gogu

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Mr Cristian Gogu holds an MA degree in Global Political Economy from the University of Kassel graduating with a dissertation on the Economic and Monetary Union and its role in the management of the financial crisis in Europe. He previously graduated from the Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest, with a thesis focused on the relationship between liberalism and democracy – the limits of the democratic decision. His academic activity is complemented by internships within the Permanent Mission of Romania to the UN and Academics Stand Against Poverty.

One important form of youth participation at the UN level is through the UN Youth Delegates Program.

In Romania, it started back in 2006 when the first two UN Youth delegates have been selected to be part of negotiations and resolutions concerning youth and youth policies. Since then, every year, two representatives of Romania attend both the General Assembly and the Commission for Social Development, participate in intergovernmental discussions and meetings, conduct various research projects and are actively involved in numerous activities held by the Civil Society (CS) community in Romania and abroad, the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the UN Information Center.

Interviewing Mr Dragoș PREDA, the initiator and co-organizer of many social, cultural and education projects, pro-actively involved in the civil society and public-private environment in Romania. Among his best known projects, we mention the ongoing Forum of Education, the Classic is Fantastic Gala, the Romanian book library in Turin and many others.

Founder of CRREDAE, as well as of the Club for Romania, Dragoș stays very much attached to the project/ the organization (with which all began): the League of Romanian Students Abroad (Liga Studenților Români din Străinătate- LSRS).

For the second time returned to Romania after getting the French Government scholarship to the French National School of Administration (ENA) and graduating from  Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne University (Master 2) , Dragoș has continued his activity in numerous civil society organizations, participating as co-organizer and/ or member of the jury of several events such as the UN Youth Delegate Programme in Romania, Education Awards Gala, Civil Society Gala, and many others.

Alexandra: How did the UN Youth Delegate program start in Romania back in 2006?

Dragoş: Of course, the roots of the programme can be found within the United Nations, where luckily, a Lady of the Romanian diplomacy, Her Excellency Simona Mirela MICULESCU, Ambassador of Romania to the United Nations, truly committed herself to this country, to its future (namely, to the youth), backing each step further with her hole energy.

But every story has different perspectives. Mine started during the second year of the UN Youth Delegate program, back in 2007. That year, I graduated from university in France and after getting my BA and MA degrees, I was looking to readapt to my home country. I found out about the program from a friend and I gave it a try.  Not too many people know this inner story:  I was not selected as I had no current involvement on the Romanian youth agenda and I was too recently returned from abroad to be the one representing the Romanian youth interests to the UN agora. Meantime, until 2009, I have been working for  the Romanian Ministry of National Defence.

But, hazard took me closer to this program on the 8^th of January 2009 when, together with some friends, I started a dream project that soon became a reality:  The League of Romanian Students Abroad or LSRS . That dream gave me the opportunity to meet all the youth NGOs in Romania, among them, the Romanian Youth Council (CTR). At that time, CTR was trying to implement the program Un Youth Delegates in collaboration with the Romanian Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Back then, I had the pleasure to meet Mr. Octavian BELLU, the State Secretary for Sports at the Minister of Youth and Sports. Mr. BELLU took this program into consideration and put it on the discussions agenda with the Minister at that time, Ms RITZI.

In addition to this, it is worth to mention that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was supporting and legitimating the program as well. I am thinking about the tremendous support for this program provided by  His Excellency, Ambassador Cosmin BOIANGIU, at that time Director General of the Direction for the United Nations; in a nutshell, after all these pieces have been put together,  the only one thing we had to do was to organize the new officially reinforced UN Youth Delegates program in Romania.

In 2014, I was appointed chief of staff of the Romanian Minister of Youth and Sports (Ms Gabriela SZABO), which I am still honored to be. This position gives me much more responsibility towards the program and towards my fellow colleagues from the civil society representing youth. While trying to improve it year by year, I thought about attaching it to the newly launched National Youth Strategy 2014 – 2020  (strategy built up by my colleagues from the Department of Youth, under the direction of Mr. Cristian COSMIN, Secretary of State for Youth and his team, with the entire help and expertise of Romanian UNICEF branch, under the direction of Ms Sandie BLANCHET).

Doing this, together with my fellow colleagues from the Direction of International Affairs, we sent protocols of collaboration to the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as, for the first time, to UNICEF, OIF, in order to get them involved not only in the evaluation of the candidates,but also in building up their expertise through internships in these institutions.

Alexandra: The selection process for the program is organized by the Romanian National Youth Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs together with the Ministry of Youth and Sports. Who are the Romanian UN Youth Delegates? Can you provide us with a general profile picture of the delegates in terms of professional and academic qualifications and personal motivation?

Dragoş: The selection of the candidates, as well as the organization of the program is done by the Ministry of Youth and Sports, through the International Affairs Directorate. Currently, the Romanian National Youth Council is one of the observing members from the youth civil society.

The Romanian MFA plays an important role in the whole program, both from the expertise side providing support on the jury process, in teaching the UN Youth Delegates the UN ways of conduct, in providing know-how, and also in helping the delegates sur-place, logistically in New York, during the two sessions.

Of course, the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is one of the two main institutional stakeholders of the program.

Usually, the two UN Youth Delegates are a young lady and a young gentleman, based on equity between men and women. Moreover,  they might be pupils or students between 18 and 25 years old. Furthermore, they are responsible young citizens of their country, very much involved in the youth civil community with a good academic background and a serious and energizing experience in matters touching their generation, advocating for a comprehensive vision of our society.

Alexandra: How would you evaluate the quality of the applications received every year and afterwards, the overall activity of the UN youth delegates in Romania?

Dragoş: Every year, I noticed improvement in the program per se and the involvement of the UN youth delegates in numerous youth-related issues. I hereby want to thank the previous UN Youth delegates,Mr Cosmin CHIRITA and Ms Eliza CHIRILA for their impressive involvement in advocating this program all over Romania, in creating awareness of the necessity of youth part-taking in the process of drawing the future of our country. Through their actions (i.e. their caravan in the country which took place between the two UN General Assembly sessions), and afterwards, while connecting the dots and the youth hubs from Romania, they managed to foster the image of the program among young potential candidates to this program.

Alexandra:  In New-York, the selected delegates from all countries involved in the program deliver a statement and participate in informal negotiations and discussions concerning youth. What is the impact of their statements at a national level? Or in other words, how does the statement reflect the ongoing activities of the delegates through their mandates?

Dragoş: I think that the New York UN arena is the right place for creating a common language, understanding and vision for our youth representatives.

The main “battle” goes home: the “battle” of their generation. Their deeds are seen after their mandate, if they pursue their goals. They are an interesting link at multiple levels: between generations, between the more opened civil society strata and the rigid public bureaucratic system, between Romania and the entire world. They are the creators of a common understanding more than a simple agenda, they are the ones creating communication bridges between the above mentioned categories.

For the first time, during the UN General Assembly session, the newly elected delegates raised  the importance of sports in the development of the future generations; therefore, for the first time, the two sides of the Ministry were linked at the UN. They stood up for the importance of developing a preemptive health system, but also for creating a cohesion in the society and between cultures, a vehicle to end conflict, and rebuild countries. Last , but not least, sports create models to follow in the future. However, sports without youth don’t exist.

The Romanian youth start to mean something, to be heard out by the authorities, they start to build up awareness.

It takes time to change generations, but the first steps have been already taken. All it takes is to choose the best path and start walking on it.

Alexandra: It can be presumed that former UN youth delegates share common values and principles, professional objectives and interests. To what extent do former and current UN youth delegates act as a network? After finishing their mandates, do they enjoy a certain degree of influence on the wider public (political and civic level) promoting youth policies or questioning issues concerning youth?

Dragoş: For every generation of UN Youth delegates, further steps have been taken. Of course, an important element is each one’s character, their will, the drive they have, how wide is they comfort zone, how visionary is they determinacy.

For the moment, their community is not truly forged, I would say that they become more united only “against dangerous situations” when, for example, the quality of the program is concerned. The European education system does not create the truly alumni network we might expect, and even if they remain more or less attached to the network and to the program, life takes them to much more individualistic careers and less advocating and involvement. So their influence is very much linked to their personality and their interest in pursuing the mandate they had and less on a real community building vision.

Alexandra:  What are in your perspective the tools to enhance a better performance in terms of efficiency, activities and results of the program in Romania?

Dragoş: The best tool is the  will: the will of their generation, the drive of the delegate themselves to conquer each and every obstacle, to surpass their beliefs and the previous generations, the difficulties and inertia of the system.

The second element, after the will of each stakeholder, should be a better and more clear financing process of the program.When we think about the material resources, we should perceive them as moyens-en-soi and not as but-en-soi (fins). We are the aspiration of ourselves and of the future generations, not the artifacts we built-up for our needs.

Moreover, I’m thinking about  the importance of developing the network and create better connections between our delegates and various other programs, such as those developed by UNICEF, the UN Alliance of Civilizations chapter Romania, the MUNs (model of United Nations) programs, and UE Assembly simulations for youth.  We might also consider opening international relations, political, security and defense think-tanks agendas to youth. In a nutshell, it is tremendously important to connect the dots of our society!

Alexandra: What are the main priorities of the current mandate of the Romanian UN Youth Delegates? And to what extent do they enjoy institutional support from governmental and non-governmental bodies?

Dragoş: For the 2014 – 2015 mandate, the new delegates are Ms Bianca DRAGOMIR and Mr Luca CIUBOTARU, selected after the selection process conducted in August 2014. They have already conducted consultations with youth reprezentatives from Bucharest and other cities in Romania and organized various events on youth issues and campaigns to promote the values of the United Nations.

The aims of United Nations Youth Delegate program are:

• To directly involve the Romanian young people on drawing the international policy agenda on youth;
• To develop a sustainable society thru democratic values by facilitating youth participation on all decision-making levels;
• To promote youth policies, policy coordination mechanisms among young Romanians at national level as well as the importance of youth programs as part of the socio-economic development;
• To familiarize young people in Romania with global development issues and opportunities for involvement they have in this regard;
• To support activities and youth initiatives in Romania.

The types of activities initiated by the two youth delegates include:

• National activities aiming to increase awareness among young people in Romania on global issues and promote UN values;
• Seminars/ trainings/ workshops on the topic of sustainable development in Romania in the context of globalization;
• Debates/ conferences on UN specific topics;
• Publication of articles/ organization of challenging debates on specific topics regarding youth issues at a global level.

The two delegates also participate in a series of activities in order to actively promote both locally and nation-wide the priorities and as the values of the United Nations Program. Thus, the youth delegates participate in a range of activities, such as conferences, debates, roundtables, youth events promoting active citizenship, volunteering, non-formal education, leadership, human rights; as well as seminars, trainings schools, thematic forums, youth summits etc. on sustainable development issues and constantly touching the role of Romania in the context of globalization.

At international level, Romania’s Youth Delegates in-office attend two intergovernmental conferences: the United Nations General Assembly (in October) and the Commission for Social Development (in February, the following year).

Nowadays, despite the fact that the program was very well promoted by our previous delegates, from my point of view,  we should struggle more in order to develop the UN Youth Delegate culture in Romania

Alexandra: How would you encourage young people to apply for this program? Do you have a message for those who might consider it in the future?

Dragoş: I will start by discouraging them! 🙂  First, they will have to challenge their will and ask themselves if they have what it takes: not only the knowledge, the skills, the aptitudes, not only the will, the drive, the energy to surpass any obstacles, challenge new experiences, taste new flavors of human understanding, jump in an almost unknown before world with a thirst to discover! Only after that they will truly be able to open up the  door to the wonderful and complex world of diplomacy! From that moment,  their life should be about the others, about building, developing, reveling new perspectives of human thriving.

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Who are the UN Youth Delegates? In order to find out more about their profile, former and current activities, we discussed with several UN Youth Delegates who gave us their pespective over the program they have been part of for one year, back in the days.

(Reportage by Alexandra TIMOFTE)

For Ms Alexandra MARTIN, former UN Youth Delegate in 2008/2009, it was by far one of the most challenging, exciting and enriching period of my life until now. I was only 19 when I found myself living my dream, but also experiencing the world from a different perspective. Together with Bogdan Covaliu, we aimed to craft a mandate that would reconcile the national perspectives on youth, be they expressed by national governmental stakeholders, NGOs or individuals and bridge the gap between the diplomatic interplay and grass root realities. With a great support from H.E Simona Miculescu, the Romanian Permanent Representative of Romania to UN and her team based in New York, we managed to get our message across at the highest degree. We have worked together with the youth representatives from other countries to emphasize the importance of involving us, the youth, in the conversation and decision making process when it comes to our own future and development.

After finishing my mandate, I have been working in the Romanian Non-Governmental sector, in the field of education and human rights. In 2012, I have been deployed as a civilian expert, seconded by the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Georgia. Initially, I served as a human security monitor and after as Operations Officer of the European Union Monitoring Mission, Field Office Zugdidi.

At this moment, I returned to academia, enrolled in a MA program at Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, specializing in International Economics and Conflict Management, with a particular focus on the transition from traditional peacekeeping to multidimensional operations in conflict affected areas.

Ms Alexandra NASTASE, now Policy Analyst at the World Bank, former UN Youth Delegate back in 2011/2012, the mandate as a United Nations Youth Delegate represents a significant professional development opportunity, but goes beyond work and succeeds to influence you as a person. When you understand the type of responsibility that you have been given as the voice of your generation at the most important political forum, this becomes irreversibly a character-building experience. In more practical terms, for me, it meant the moment when I realized that I want to dedicate my career to serving the community, and this has been the main driving force in my professional life so far.

At national level, we worked with various stakeholders to define our mandate, in order to make sure that our appeal to all Member States represents the Romanian youth. Based on the consultations we held, we chose to focus on prioritization of investments in youth employment, encouragement of active citizenship and recognition of volunteerism as an instrument to acquire practical skills for integration in the labor market. Moreover, we organized several events in which we aimed to bring the UN values closer to the Romanian Youth or the Romanian experience closer to the other UN Youth Delegates or Permanent Representations of different Member States to he United Nations.

 Complementary to the representation and advocacy attributions, we also took an active role at the international level, working with youth-led organizations, Regional and National Youth Councils and the other United Nations Youth Delegates in order to advocate for the appointment of a Special Advisor to the Secretary General on Youth matters!

The Romanian Development Review published by  The Romanian Association for International Cooperation and Development (ARCADIA) aims to serve as a forum of knowledge sharing opening thought-provoking debates on topics relevant to the field of international development. While connecting local and regional initiatives to the global context, the Review provides insightful contributions and coming trends dedicated to professionals working in the non-governmental and governmental sector, scholars and students interested in the discipline. Starting in November 2014, the review appears bi-annually and it is open-access.

Each issue is dedicated to one general topic which is analyzed through several articles, essays, interviews and opinions. Therefore, in order to ensure the comprehension, significance and visibility of projects and actions performed in the field, the editorial board strongly encourages the submission of written contributions from experts, action groups and organizations actively involved in areas covered by the discipline, working in Romania and abroad.

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The current issue of The Romanian International Development Review published in November 2014 opens the discussion around the effectiveness and impact of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the sustainability of the new global objectives enshrined in the post-2015 Development Agenda.

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Get connected to regional and global debates through the Romanian International Development Review! Stay driven! Happy reading!

After centuries of moral discussions on issues as war and peace, a new wave of thinking in the international relations became the main focus of concern. Once the interdependence between states and actors in the international arena strengthened accompanied by the erosion of sovereignty, and after witnessing the horrendous crimes of the WWII, new standards began to develop in the moral thinking, in the sense that equal treatment for human beings was expected to be guaranteed for everyone on the planet.

This development considers minimum standards at the institutional level that aim to be implemented everywhere in the world for every citizen in and outside the country. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is such a standard, upon the majority of the world states adhered. The European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) along with other international organizations were invested with a part of the national sovereignty of the member stated in order to take more equitable measures of governance, create supranational institutions and limit the powers of the individual states. Other global developments such as worldwide protests, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), technological developments, transnational labor, climate change, biodiversity, and trade required the need to open new ethical measures and discussions in order to keep track of the ethics of the new paradigm; these discussions reflect a struggle for Global Justice everywhere in the world. Issues such as poverty, inequality, extended injustices and the responsibility of governments, corporations and individuals are brought to the table in academic debates, a proper ground of creating equitable principles.

Human rights are now of great importance, being regarded by many advocates as universal and inalienable, yet despite their wide acceptance, many injustices and violations are still taking place under the same institutional architecture in which some others are doing more than well. The 67 richest people are as wealthy as the world’s poorest 3.5 billion,[1] 1,020 million[2] people are chronically undernourished, and 2.5 billion[3] lack access to basic sanitation, while 2,000 million do not have access to essential drugs[4]. 18 million[5] die annually from poverty related causes, half of them being children under the age of 5.

As an issue of Global Justice, this paper is analyzing the global arms trade that is responsible of grave violations of human rights, but also has consequences and implications in causing poverty and preventing the international development to take place properly. I will use an institutional approach to human rights and the arms trade, rather than an interactional approach (actions between individuals). The research question is whether the citizens of the affluent countries are in any way responsible for the catastrophic effects that arms trade has upon the most vulnerable and how this situation can be changed. I will take a further step to connect the decisions that the governments of the affluent countries take when they impose unjust international standards upon the poorest countries to the extent of the idea that they represent the citizens’(of the affluent ones) acceptance of such impositions.

Moreover, the responsibility is seen as a negative duty not to harm which is more stringent and powerful than the positive duty of helping or protecting someone’s rights. The arms trade is a good example of this distinction from the perspective of the participants in the global institutional architecture.

The approach of this paper is shaped by the non-ideal theory which focuses on the question of what makes the actual system unjust, rather than the ideal theory concerned with the question, what a perfectly ideal system should look like; starting with the current institutional order and what can be modified in order to fulfill the minimum standard of the basic rights for everyone.

The aim and scope of this work is to understand the paradigm shift brought by the phenomenon of globalization as a starting point for finding pragmatic solutions for this important change that is continuously taking place based on philosophical moral arguments. The idea of Global Justice is to help address avoidable current global issues in such a manner that the following evolutions in alleviating world poverty and human rights violations to be aligned with today world’s needs. The SDGs that are about to be implemented starting with 2015, for example, are aimed to respond to the failures of the previous actions in this respect, are an example of some Global Justice efforts.

The significance of this approach is to address an issue of Global Justice that is insufficiently studied, which only gained more importance in the last decade, namely the global arms trade and the unjust system that governs it. Undertaking this direction of study is crucial because the global arms trade is tightly linked with systemic poverty.

To make a short overview, I will further summarize the structure and I will explain why I chose this specific order of the chapters.

Chapter 1 starts with the first three articles of the UDHR, which, as the reader will notice throughout the paper, are not fulfilled for a large part of the world’s population in the context of arms trade, through direct or indirect effects of this global activity. It continues with a historical and a literature review of human rights and several ways of understanding them from a philosophical perspective. I used Gewirth’s theory of Principle Absolute, Pogge’s alternative understanding of human rights from the moral cosmopolitanism perspective and Rawls’ approach of a minimum set of rights in the interaction between states.

Chapter 2 is explaining why and how the global arms trade is responsible for human rights violations, addressing a structural problem that is caused by the very rules meant to prevent a malfunctioning of this sector. The International Law (IL) is not properly built to prevent genocides, atrocities and civil wars – I will explain why in a detailed analysis of the loopholes in the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), and also why the peremptory customary law of jus cogens fails to be respected. The negative duty approach is helping us to determine why IL is not suitable when it comes to arms trade because it is mostly based on the positive duty – the Responsibility to Protect (R2P).

Chapter 3 explains the concept of responsibility and makes the transition from the idea of states’ responsibility alone to the responsibility of citizens from affluent countries in facilitating grave human rights violations, by contributing through votes, taxes and tacit acceptance of the unjust system that is governing the circulation of arms around the world.

Chapter 4 shows the horrific fear that vulnerable people and societies are constantly living with and why it is of great importance to eliminate it as soon as possible, so the personal and social development of the affected ones can start taking place.

Read more: Issues of Global Justice_Diana VELICA

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[1] Moreno, “The 67 People As Wealthy As The World’s Poorest 3.5 Billion”

[2] FAO, “1.02 Billion People Hungry” in Pogge, 2010, p. 11

[3] WHO and UNICEF, 2013, p. 5 in Pogge, 2010, p. 11

[4] Fogarty International Center, “Strategic Plan” in Pogge, 2010, p. 11

[5] ‘In 2004, there were about 59 million human deaths. The main causes highly correlated with poverty were (with death tolls in thousands):  diarrhea (2,163) and malnutrition (487), perinatal (3,180) and maternal  conditions (527), childhood diseases (847 – measles accounting for about half), tuberculosis (1,464), malaria (889), meningitis (340), hepatitis (159), tropical diseases (152), respiratory infections (4,259 – mainly pneumonia),  HIV/AIDS (2,040) and sexually transmitted diseases (128) (WHO, Global  Burden of Disease, table A1, pp. 54–9). To be sure, some deaths from these causes would still have occurred even in the absence of poverty. But these are greatly outnumbered by the contribution that poverty makes to deaths from globally common causes such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, traffic accidents, and violence. It is likely then that rather more than one third of all human lives are substantially shortened by severe poverty.’ (Pogge, 2010, p. 205, n. 10)

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Ms Diana Velica is currently researching issues of Post 2015 Development Agenda and Human Rights. Diana earned her M.A. from the University of Bucharest in International Development Studies and International Relations Ethics with a dissertation called Issues of Global Justice: Is the Arms Trade Violating the Human Rights?; she holds a B.A. from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, with a thesis focused on small arms and light weapons’ proliferation in the context of globalization. Diana was a Visiting Assistant in Research at Yale University within the Global Justice Program in the fall of 2013, where she was focused on issues like global arms trade, international law and world poverty. Her expertise is built through research, volunteer work and internships in various organizations such as Making Commitments Matter, the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Romanian Association for International Cooperation and Development, and Academics Stand Against Poverty.

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Photo credits: .UNAMID / Albert Gonzales Farran