Together for Development is a grassroots initiative founded in 2012 in Washington DC by a group of young professionals (economists, diplomats, lawyers, engineers, etc.) who aimed to come up with a different approach and development aid design.

This is a very frank interview with Alexandru Ciorobea, the founder and CEO of Together for Development.

Alexandra:  Alex, how would you describe the concept behind Together for development?

Alexandru Ciorobea: I would describe it as a down to earth alternative to dealing with poverty and aid-dependency in small communities who have a lucrative business idea, but zero access to capital, information or other resources. Together is about addressing poverty through targeted, measurable and accountable economic empowerment. What does that mean? Actually it’s pretty simple: you cannot be serious about poverty and social development as long as you do not go down to their root causes. Among the worst of which is the lack of access to information about existing opportunities, corroborated with a chronic lack of access to the capital needed to generate development and growth.

Our aim is simple: deal with poverty one community at a time, with clear timelines, objectives and benchmarks. We don’t discuss politics, we don’t advertise and definitely don’t spend resources juggling truisms about development, human rights and such. There are plenty others who are already doing a fantastic job on that department. We deal instead with concrete projects that translate into small businesses that translate on their turn into steady incomes for the respective communities that further translate into better living conditions and in the end, in saying that those communities are no longer poor or aid-dependent. Simple as that.

Alexandra: Over the last 25 years, the number of donors, non-governmental organizations, foundations, corporations, charities and other stakeholders interested in bringing a change in poor communities living with 1.25 or 2 dollars per day in Africa and South Asia has grown enormously. Nevertheless, despite the fact that recent poverty estimates show a notable decline in extreme poverty, serious criticisms is very often attached to the aid industry.

As a former UN expert and diplomat, how would you assess the progress made by international institutions, civil society and governments in tackling extreme poverty and achieving the MDGs?

Alexandru Ciorobea:  First of, in order to “assess the progress” of something – anything, for that matter – we need to make sure that we have enough reliable referential data and performance indicators available, against which we should compare our “progress”.

On this particular topic – the “progress of the MDG’s” – there are two approaches: the official, “correct” and almost non-debatable one, widely advertised all over the mainstream media who wouldn’t dare to say anything against the morality powerhouse which is the UN; and then, the “hush-hush” version, whispered from behind the scenes, usually over a lousy coffee in the UN cafeterias. The latter category rarely sees the print or make it into the mainstream. A notable exception was the “Oil For Food” scandal, from which Kofi Annan, the artisan of the Millennium Declaration came out pretty wrinkled.

However, on the topic at hand, at least at this point, nobody in their right mind would risk his/her career and credibility by whistling in the church of multilateralism and by criticizing the excellent work carried out behind closed-doors by so many honorable experts. I can say that, because I myself was once one of those “experts” wasting long sleepless nights fighting over the placement of comas in some obscure non-compulsory resolutions or fighting over the most benign synonyms to replace anything that sounded remotely compulsory, in scores of toothless resolutions.

Well, just to give a little context to what I’ve just said – I expect to have raised at least a couple of eyebrows by now.

How did the MDGs come into being? In the late 90s, Kofi Annan was looking to find a way to keep development and poverty eradication on the agenda at a time when the interest on global issues seemed to be waning, while the international image of the UN was still severely bruised after the Rwandan and Bosnian fiascos. He came up with the Millennium Declaration – something befitting the symbolism of the year 2000 and in the meantime something that could be universally accepted as “good and righteous”, channeling the energies of the international community in a more positive direction, away from the peacekeeping resounding failures. It was a striking document defining a set of shared values and commitments to a range of goals, collected from previously agreed outcome documents adopted in various international summits. Lacking the force of international law or the enforcement mechanisms of international treaties, Annan and his colleagues needed a way to maintain political and financial support for what came to be known as the “world’s biggest promise.”

Right from the outset, the MDGs came with serious design flaws. However, these flaws were perfectly understandable considering the haste with which the goals were agreed upon and collated in the backrooms of the UN by a small number of high level bureaucrats from a handful of multilateral organizations.

As a result of the somewhat undemocratic and opaque process by which the MDGs were drafted, the goals and targets were somewhat sketchy and their flaws became quickly apparent to the people on the field who needed to translate them into actual reality…

Concretely, let’s look a little bit against what benchmarks we were expected to evaluate the progress made in 15 years:

– For many of the targets, reliable data collection simply did not exist or was of poor quality, or its insufficient coverage made it irrelevant for any serious statistical analysis. You can imagine that this was the case with many African, Central American and even Asian states in which data collection was very difficult, unreliable or just impossible, considering the local sources and the objective contexts in which it took place… Just think of all the countries that were affected by raging civil wars or were engaged in military conflicts during the 90s and the 2000s… How would you collect accurate data from there and even more so, against what data would you assess their progress later on? Furthermore, by backdating the benchmarks of the goals to 1990 – yes, the goals and specific targets were decided upon and designed in 2000, but the referential thresholds were backdated with a whole decade – the challenge of data collection was made worse, even if we are to admit just that the quality of statistical data available was worse in 1990 than in 2000.

– Even the indicators for which data collection was more reliable were highly suspect. For example, the World Bank’s “International Poverty Line” that was set at $1.25 according to 2005 purchasing power parity per day (the PPP) was set by an unsubstantiated method – it was widely criticized by expert economists ever since – as it was based on random purchasing power conversions, while also being highly dependent on the base year selected for converting the domestic currency into US dollars… Only think that the purchasing power of $1.25 in 1990 was dramatically different from that of 2000 and even more so, of that of 2015 after you factor in the inflation, a severe and prolonged world economic crisis and spiking prices for essential goods. So, yes, according to the $1.25 benchmark the statistics look definitely better, however, the reality on the ground tells a different story considering the small adjustment details just mentioned. Concretely, if 25 years ago a Cameroonian family of four could fare reasonably well with a combined revenue of $75 per month, at the 1990s PPP levels, well, I can assure you that the same is definitely not possible in 2015 when the prices have gone wild especially in import dependent economies, additionally plagued by irresponsibly high import tariffs for everything you can think of…

– Furthermore, by selecting targets that disregarded a country’s starting point on all relevant fields, their available resources or capacity to implement structural reforms, the assessment of the MDGs, at national level, made it almost impossible for the worst off countries in the list to be successful. For example, consider a country that had to cut poverty by half. If we consider that 20% of the population lives under the poverty line, then 10% of the population was expected to make it above the $1.25/day threshold in a 15 year period. This would be reasonably manageable, considering that the starting point was not so steep to start with. But for a country with a poverty rate of 60%, the challenge is obviously completely different, as it needs to cut poverty by 30% of the total population in the same 15 years, while starting from the premise that the latter country would obviously be marred with more complicated challenges than the former, while having far fewer resources at its disposal. Also, nobody took into account the demographic increase of the countries most affected by the issues considered under the MDGs.

– And now one of my “favorite” objections: many of the indicators used to measure progress were revised during the MDG process. For example, one of the most recent ones to be revisef was the indicator for measuring progress against chronical malnutrition. When do you think this happened? Five year into the process, or maybe eight? No, it happened in 2012, in the 22^nd year of the referential period, when FAO leisurely presented „a new and improved” methodology for counting the chronically undernourished. In essence, what this „new” methodology did, was no less than to change the very definition of chronic undernourishment according to which a steadily rising number of people affected by hunger was turned into a steadily falling trend-line. Moreover, this new definition completely disregards a tiny little detail that would have mixed-up the numbers: during the economic crisis, between 2008-2012 there was a dramatic increase in world food prices that affected especially the people living in those countries that were expected to make the longest leaps… In fact, what FAO is telling us – with the approval of its own Executive Board and that of ECOSOC – is that according to its new, innovative method to do the counting, the number of 1 billion people malnourished from 1990 has actually fallen to „just” 800 mil., conveniently forgetting that in 2009 it reported that the number of malnourished people – according to its own old criteria! – had broken the ceiling of 1 billion, for the first time in human history.

Essentially it’s about changing the rules during the game if you’re not too comfy with the performance of your favorite team. This way of cosmetizing inconvenient truths is neither new, nor original. It’s widely used by PR companies that are paid top dollar to make their clients look good for their investors. Unfortunately, in the case of the MDGs, the impact of these “adjustments” or “revisions” was to alter the perception regarding the progress made towards objectives that were too important to miss. However, even with these funny tricks, the discrepancies between the desired results and the realities on the ground were so steep that no auditor would have agreed to push the scalpel any further, even for the sake of the greater good.

– Lastly – and with this I promise I will end my list of personal reservations: no serious discussion was carried out regarding 1. the mechanisms by which these goals were to be achieved and 2. how states and international organizations would be held accountable for their failure to deliver on their commitments to uphold the MDGs.

However, in spite of all my objections – stemming from what I gathered during my work with those directly concerned by the success or failure of the MDGs and also by taking part directly to the mechanics behind the drafting of such goals – certain progresses have undoubtedly been achieved. But all these progresses were made possible, and are the most apparent, in those states in which the local authorities proved real commitment to the greater good of their people rather than keeping with the consecrated formula “rip the benefits as long as you have the power”. I’m thinking of the likes of Rwanda, Botswana, Ghana, Ethiopia, Egypt, Vietnam, the Philippines, Cambodia, Sri Lanka etc. Of course, there are many caveats regarding those indicators that are not included among the MDGs, such as the progress toward a viable rule of law, respect for human rights, fight against corruption, democratization, environmental protection etc.

In conclusion, regardless of the specifics and of all the bickering around whether the MDGs were effective or not, the very fact that now we have expanded the conversation and the member states of the UN have hit the “refresh” button by adopting the SDGs is a clear indicator that the will is there and that the remaining problems are duly acknowledged. The most important achievement of the MDGs, in my opinion, besides the actual improvements on the ground, is that the conversation is still open and that the international community has stepped up its pledges towards a much more comprehensive development agenda.

Alexandra: I heard about your work at Together for Development from the ad of the crowdfunding campaign “Project Kribi- Time to Make a Difference’’ that aimed to empower a small fishing community  of 200 people from Kribi (Cameroon). The organization’s approach, probably based on the oft-quoted saying Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime, was to create a sustainable business model equipping fishermen with necessary fishing tools and helping them store/ transport/ sell their fish products on other markets than the local one in Kribi oversaturated with same products.

Alex, how would you describe your activity as a development worker within the MDGs framework?

Alexandru Ciorobea:  Quite easy: our projects, at a micro-scale, aim to meet all 8 goals and many of the targets of the SDGs, not in 15 years, but in 3. For example, with our first project in Cameroon, “Project Kribi”, by setting up a lucrative cooperative in a small, homogenous community, in only 6 months of activity we achieved the following:

• The daily average income per capita for all the active members of the cooperative is currently at $9, compared to $2.3, as it was before our collaboration;
• Obviously nobody is going to bed hungry anymore in our community;
• Several women in the community are now involved in the administration of the cooperative and they can now keep away from taking up risky activities;
• All children in the community attend school and benefit from medical assistance;
• There was no case of child or maternal death since we started the project and considering that our members can now afford quality medical services, this is not a matter of concern anymore;
• HIV/AIDS is not an issue in our community;
• Currently all households have access to safe drinking water.

Furthermore, encouraged by the results of this project, we are just about to start a new one this month, into a larger community from the central region of Cameroon. This new project is focused on agricultural development and ecological sustainability. You can say that this new project is an upscaling of the previous one, with a wider demographic impact.

Plus, and perhaps most importantly, considering that our projects have clear deadlines and terms of completion – including even terms to define their failure – we definitely stand against perpetuating the lucrative policy of aid-dependency.

So, I guess you could say that by implementing the concept of Together we are trying to play our tiny role in bringing the MDGs and now the SDGs closer to their intended targets. As I was saying: making a difference one community at a time.

Alexandra: The UN Summit for the Adoption of the Post-2015 Development Agenda is taking place these days at the UN HQ in NYC. We seem to have everything in the new 17 goals and their 169 targets. Nevertheless, as you have could experience yourself in your work, what matters at the end of each and every day are concrete results: kids in schools, drinking water delivered in all homes around the world, rural electrification, law enforcement in violence-prone areas, sustainable businesses, less aid dependency,  and the list can go on forever.

What are your hopes and fears regarding the SDGs?

How do you think the new post-development agenda will restructure the development work in the next 15 years in order to make better happen? 

Alexandru Ciorobea: These are tough questions. The first: after the experience of the MDGs and based on my own conclusions since I started working outside the very protective umbrella of the „official capacity”, I could say that my hopes became also my fears. After you go through several reality checks along the way, you come to realize that when your hopes meet with a very unpredictable reality, it is only natural for fear to kick in. That’s how you turn a tad more pragmatic in dealing with your ideals… This also leads to better defining your goals, starting from what you know that could realistically be achieved, rather than what you wish for.

For instance, I fear that the SDGs not only that will replicate the pitfalls of the MDGs, but judging by the scale of their ambition, will multiply and diversify them. The SDGs, in my opinion, propose a too idealistic vision on the true potential for positive change of our increasingly unpredictable geopolitical reality. Think only of the unforeseen events that happened in the past 6 months around the world, many of them with long-term social and economic consequences that were not factored into the grand development scheme of the SDGs. In our interconnected world, where the shockwaves of conflicts and instability spread like wildfire, it is simply unrealistic to set minute targets without considering the specificities of each country or region in which those particular targets are expected to be implemented.

In the current collection of goals and targets, a sort of MDGs v2.1 (promising more bug-fixes while claiming dramatically more resources from an aging computer), I’m afraid that many of the world’s intractable development problems are not addressed. And they could not possibly be addressed, considering that, at the end of the day, like any other document negotiated and adopted by states with different and oftentimes diverging agendas, it is an intensely politicized material. It is the lowest common denominator that could have been agreed by 193 negotiators, each with his own agenda.

Just to zoom out a little bit to get some perspective: the SDGs not only that aim to put an end to global poverty and deal with environmental crisis while ensuring universal respect for human rights, but they intend to do all that everywhere by 2030!

Now, let’s take a closer look at our reasons to worry – I wouldn’t recommend using “fear” at this point, as it would be a bit premature. However, let’s see:

– Same as the MDGs, the SDGs include goals and targets for which there are no reliable data available, nor could they be available in the foreseeable future. For example, target 2.5 tells us that by 2020 the world should “maintain genetic diversity of seeds, cultivated plants, farmed and domesticated animals and their related wild species (…) at national, regional and international levels (…)”. As far as I know, there are no quantitative indicators against which the development actors (individual states or international agencies) can be judged on this target.

– The SDGs recycle indicators that were known to be deeply flawed from the MDGs’ evaluation experience. For example, the global poverty eradication target continues to be $1.25, at the same old 2005 PPP level. I guess nothing better could be agreed upon…

– The SDGs keep the same arbitrary way of deciding on the desirable rate of progress. For example, under Goal 3, maternal mortality is to be cut to 70 per 100,000 births, and child mortality is to be eliminated altogether, same as AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, while hepatitis, water borne diseases and other communicable diseases are to be just “combated”. Premature mortality from non-communicable diseases is to be cut by 1/3, while road accidents are to be cut by 1/2. Who came up with these numbers and on what criteria? Was there a serious assessment regarding the attainability of these targets within the next 15 years? And come on, how will we exterminate all African malaria-carrying mosquitoes by 2030 without using chemical insecticides? Or maybe mosquitoes-nets will prove more effective than ever before, or perhaps some miraculous vaccine is in the pipeline to be patented and I don’t know about it.

– Other SDGs are just too simplistic and naïve to be taken seriously by any experienced development practitioner. For example, target 1.4 of the poverty eradication goal includes, no more and no less than a “guarantee” that everyone should have access to microfinance, despite the fact that the best available evidence suggests that microfinance did not prove to be the effective tool for combating poverty as it was originally advertised. Goal number 4, on education, refers to life-long learning opportunities for all. Again, as any expert on education from UNICEF knows all too well, while this is a desirable goal, it is hardly one that should be prioritized over more immediate gaps to be filled, such as: increasing the number of professional educators; reducing the number of students per educator; increasing access to schools in order to improve attendance; design new and more competitive curricula; or to increase family income as to allow for the parents to keep their children in school.

And these are just a few examples that I quickly picked them from the notes I made when preparing an op-ed on the topic of the SDGs.

However, if we are to judge by what happened with the MDGs, we can expect fifteen years of high-level pleads for “more political commitment”, for “pledging more resources” towards an unprecedented success that would only be missed if the largest contributors will not gradually scale up their financial contributions while the recipients will have to “increase their political commitments” (please read: “make more imaginative promises of reform and democratization”, in most cases).

I also expect no change in the optimistic way in which we will be presented the progress towards the achievement of the goals and targets – optimistic enough, but not too much, as to discourage increased amounts of financial support from generous donors. We should never forget that the international agencies, the ones holding the monopoly over what reaches the public eye, are funded and controlled by governments. What does that mean? Well, it means that those who are in power in those governments or governing structures will never be willing to look as if they failed in such an honorable endeavor. They will want to project success and their mandates to be associated with some achievements on such a global scale.

I’m sorry, but after living amidst real people in the developing world and getting to know, first hand, their real problems, beyond any convenient rhetoric for the eyes or ears of the general public, I can’t show a better brand of optimism. But again, this is just me and nothing should be taken face value. That is exactly why I’m encouraging all those interested in real-life development, to go on the ground, to engage in real fieldwork and experience reality for themselves, through the filter of their own principles and ideals. Development and human rights simply cannot be done from classrooms and textbooks, from conference halls or from 5 stars hotels. Development should happen on the ground, not on paper, in charts or in power point presentations.

However, regardless of what may or may not happen, the SDGs, same as the MDGs, are somehow like an experimental vaccine: they may work, or they may not, but no harm can be done by trying.

Alexandra: Together for development is an organization that seems very close to the principle of subsidiarity, setting goals at the most appropriate level in the communities where you carry on your projects.

Who are the communities you work with? 

Could you tell us more about the current/ future projects you work on at Together?

Alexandru Ciorobea: Currently, we work in Cameroon with 2 different communities. One is a community of fishermen in Kribi, right on the Atlantic coast, where we have set up a sustainable commercial fishery and a fish-distribution operation, while the other is located deep into a remote area from the central region. The latter is an agrarian community that due to its geographic isolation and lack of access to most resources had to diversify and develop by itself. What made us interested in them was their proven capacity to work together and thrive despite unimaginable adversities and without absolutely any help from the local authorities. This second project is much larger in scale and more diversified than the fishery. If successful, we will prove that the development model proposed by Together can be implemented and generate results even in the most remote and geographically challenged communities.

The third project in Cameroon is focused on the empowerment of women. Essentially, we plan to develop an all-women cooperative that is harvesting and processing a traditional local plant called Allanblackia Floribunda. Most of these women were victims of various forms of abuses and were outcast by their conservative communities of origin. Their only chance for a better and dignified life is to develop their own income generating activity. So, in a nutshell, Together intends to provide these women with all the necessary technology that would enable them to increase their productivity, the quality of their products and to expand their presence on the local markets.

 However, the dearest and closest to my heart is the project that we have developed in Romania, as the pilot project of Together, back in the spring of 2013, when we were trying to test the concept in the real world. There we developed a fully organic and carbon neutral bee-farm. The project is now in its last year of development. That means that according to our agreement, our collaboration with them will end in May 2016. At that point, according to the financial indicators, the project will be self-sustainable and set on a growing trend. You can find more about it from our website and also anyone interested can order honey, pollen and a wide range of apicultural byproducts directly from their website: www.mellydor.ro.

 In perspective, once the bee-farm project will be over next year, we intend to start another project in Romania, most probably in the field of social responsibility and civic education focused on young people from disadvantaged communities.

Alexandra: The name of your organization – Together for development – seems to catch the idea of #SDG17 (Partnership for the Goals). Is the idea of partnership for development sufficiently shared amongst decision makers, CS workers and final beneficiaries (i.e. communities in need)?

Alexandru Ciorobea:  As I was excessively long on all my other answers I will be brief on this one. About decision makers, the problem is not that they wouldn’t be aware of what needs to be done. At that level, the problem is a bit more cynical than that. It’s all about political benefits. If a certain project presents immediate political or image capital, then it is likely that it will draw the necessary attention and maybe the support of the “decision makers”, otherwise it’s either shelved or left for the idealist activists… With the CS workers, honestly I didn’t have enough contacts as to form an opinion one way or another.

However, at the level of the beneficiaries, there can be a real challenge. The idea of “partnership” and mutual obligations, of deadlines and quantitative targets is initially difficult to grasp. It takes time, patience and perseverance to create the premises for developing a project that would stand a decent chance to come out on the green after the first year… This is not only applicable in countries where one would expect that cultural differences may be the main impediments, but also closer to home.

Believe me, it took us some many long, unsuccessful hours to try to explain to some communities in Romania that the modern cooperatives that proved successful in many other EU countries – especially from Central Europe, such as Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria or Poland – have nothing to do with the cooperatives from the communist time. We were met with a high level of reticence and we came to understand that some people simply cannot grasp how someone would just wish to help them develop their own businesses without giving them money but just means of production and counseling. Moreover, very few of them seemed to understand and to be willing to accept the rigors of a business-plan, with clear deadlines and assessable growth and productivity targets. Well, the problems are more complex on this department and this could easily make the topic of a different conversation some other time.

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With a very rich academic background (holding a BA degree in Management and Administrative Studies from Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies (Romania), an MA degree in Anglophone Studies from Metropolitan University (Czech Republic) and being a graduate of George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, (Germany), Alexandru Ciorobea became a career diplomat with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Romania (2004-2012).

Posted in NYC with the Permanent Mission of Romania to the United Nations, between 2007-2012 he negotiated, on behalf of the European Union, several General Assembly resolutions on Human Rights and development. His main fields of expertise are Human Rights, humanitarian affairs, social and economic development. In December 2012, after he left the MFA, he established Together for Development in Washington D.C., which is an American non-profit organization aiming to promote a new model of implementing economic and social development projects.

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The views expressed in this article are solely the property of their author and do not represent under any circumstances the official position of any international organization.

The Romanian Development Camp 2015 – entitled “Development Cooperation Days” was a public event organised by the Romanian NGDO Platform – FOND in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations Development Programme –  Regional Centre for Europe and Central Asia. This edition took place between 8^th – 10^th of July in Bucharest in the context of the European Year for Development 2015. Having the unique opportunity to bring the public closer to development issues, the event’s main purpose was to raise awareness on Romania’s role as an international donor and inspire Romanian institutions, organisations and individuals to become more involved in the global efforts of eradicating poverty in the world.

Reaching its 8^th edition, the Romanian Development Camp has become a traditional annual event, which reunites representatives from NGOs, government, academia and mass-media within a unique space dedicated to fostering an open and constructive dialogue on topics relevant for the field of international development cooperation. 

This year’s edition was different from all the others, being an interactive and open event which combined plenary sessions and thematic workshops with side-events such as a movie projection and debate, photo exhibition, theatre forum and a projects’ fair. Throughout these activities, the audience had the chance to better understand how aid works and how they can become more involved in development efforts. Also the projects’ fair offered visibility to development projects and activities with focus on results and provided the tools to better communicate development projects and results.

Moreover, the 2015 edition of the Romanian Development Camp enjoyed the presence of some of the most relevant speakers in the development cooperation field. The key note speaker was Mr. Simon Maxwell, an expert with a career in international development of over 40 years, currently Senior Research Associate at the Overseas Development Institute (UK’s leading independent think-tank on international development and humanitarian issues) who talked about the complexity of the field of international development, the achievements reached so far and the challenges we are facing in the context of a new post-2015 development agenda.

 “An excellent event and a productive partnership between civil society and the Government of Romania, demonstrating the country’s commitment to sustainable development in all its aspects, and Romania’s leadership at regional level. There is a lot to do if we are to secure a safe, prosperous and sustainable world by 2030. Romania’s engagement, on its own account and within the EU will be essential.”

 The audience also engaged in fruitful discussions with: Ms. Carmen Burlacu – State Secretary for Global Affairs, Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Geert Laporte – Deputy Director, European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM), Ms. Deirdre de Burca –  Member of the EU Beyond 2015 Campaign Steering Group, Ms. Amalia Garcia-Tharn – Policy Officer, Policy and Coherence Unit, Directorate – General for Development and Cooperation – EuropeAid, Ms. Ebba Dohlman – Senior Adviser, Office of the Secretary-General, Policy Coherence for Development Unit and many other representatives of national/European institutions and organizations (NGOs, think-tanks).

The plenary sessions were bolstered up by the thematic work-shops, focused on more specific subjects such as: Promoting development through social media, Young people in international development,  The role of academics, Migration and Development, Financing Development: The role of Multilateral Development Banks, Child Protection, Gender & Development, Humanitarian Assistance.

Nevertheless, one of the most interesting and engaging parts of the Romanian Development Camp were the side-events. Below you can have a quick peek of the most exiting moments during the event.

Living Library: Getting to Know Migrants’ Experiences in Romania

Projects’ Fair: Development Cooperation Initiatives and Projects

 Forum-Theatre: From Spectator to Actor – Disaster Risk Reduction

Food Workshop: Traditional International Cuisine, Dance and Music

For more details regarding the Romanian Development Camp 8^th edition – “Development Cooperation Days” we invite you to visit fondromania.org and FOND FB page.

The Romanian Development Camp is an annual event organized by the Romanian NGDO Platform – FOND, in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations Development Programme –  Regional Centre for Europe and Central Asia.

Thomas Pogge, November 6^th 2014:

The UN General Assembly’s Open Working Group (OWG) on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has formulated a draft of the SDGs, proposing 17 goals, which summarize 169 targets. There is still time to improve the draft in the run-up to the UNGA meeting in September 2015. Among the most important improvements to be made are these.

(1) Goal 10, to reduce inequality, looks laudable but then laughable upon inspection: we should “by 2030 progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40% of the population at a rate higher than the national average.” In other words, inequality may increase without limit until 2030 so long as it then starts declining just before the SDGs expire.

(2) After witnessing many cosmetic revisions of definitions and measurement methods involved in the Millennium Development Goals, with each revision making our efforts against poverty look more impressive, we should insist that no such revisions be allowed from now on. Moreover, the measurement of progress should not be left to politically exposed and vulnerable international agencies, such as the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization, but be entrusted to a group of respectable academic experts.

(3) The SDGs should not merely express wishes that this or that should happen but should assign concrete tasks to competent agents, esp. to the most powerful governments and enterprises. Here reforms of the structural causes of poverty are crucial. The rich countries should agree to stop facilitating illicit financial outflows from the poor countries, to stop imposing their protectionism and pollution on the world without compensation, to stop blocking poor populations’ access to advanced medicines, to stop blocking the adoption of decent global labor standards, and to stop supporting dictators by paying them for their countries’ natural resources or by lending them money or selling them arms.

Never has persistent severe poverty been more easily avoidable and hence a greater moral scandal. We must eradicate it as quickly as we possibly can.

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Mr Thomas Pogge is the Director of the Global Justice Program and the Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University.

He is also president of Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP), an international professional association focused on helping poverty researchers and teachers enhance their positive impact on severe poverty. He is the author of several well-known books, such as World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms (second edition, 2008), Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right: Who Owes What to the Very Poor? (editor, 2007), John Rawls: His Life and Theory of Justice (2007), and Realizing Rawls (1989).

For more on Thomas Pogge, visit his website.

Since 2007, the Romanian NDGD platform (FOND) is actively involved in increasing the capacity of member civil society organizations in implementing, advocating and monitoring projects and programs in the field of international development and humanitarian aid. As a major actor in the field, a strategic partner of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, FOND has contributed to the promotion of MDGs and enhanced the role of Romania as a new ODA donor country at a local and regional level.

Interviewing Ms Adela Rusu, the Coordinator of the FOND platform, the Romanian NDGO platform which offers support to NGO’s working and/or willing to implement projects in the fields of development and cooperation.

Alexandra: Adela, what was the role of FOND in promoting the MDGs at national level? Could you summarize the main activities in this regard and sum up their impact?

Adela: The Romanian NGDO Platform, which currently has 36 NGOs active in development cooperation, development education and humanitarian aid, has as main role representing its members and very importantly, acts as a support center. It provides the members (for their projects and activities) relevant information and policy briefs on the global agenda, for example on issues such as development effectiveness and the Millennium Development Goals, and more recently on the post-2015 agenda.  More specifically, the platform was involved in awareness raising campaign promoting the Global Call for Action against Poverty’ campaign “Stand Up and Take Action” (2008-2009), focused on achieving MDG1 on extreme poverty and supported different campaigns on MGDs implemented by members in recent years. Recently, the platform has taken the role of facilitating national debates on the MDGs agenda by organizing since 2010 an annual event for the national development community – The Romanian Development Camp, with support from the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (as national coordinator of development cooperation) and UNDP – Bratislava Regional Center. The last edition of RDC hosted a debate on the new post-2015 agenda and provided input from the participants for the national position on this important issue.

So, FOND has been mostly involved in raising awareness and facilitating debates on the MDGs and post-2015 agenda, which is very much needed in the Romanian context as development cooperation is not very visible in the public space.

 Alexandra: One of the main objectives of FOND is the maintenance of an active implication of the Romanian CS organizations in the field of international development and humanitarian aid. How does FOND seek to stimulate the activity of Romanian NGOs in the field, and the coherence and efficiency of their efforts?  How does FOND connect its members to European and global debates in this field and support their active engagement in global discussions?

Adela: Besides the activities mentioned previously, FOND provides capacity consolidation tailor-made for the needs of the members by organizing trainings and workshops (project proposal writing, advocacy, campaigning, different policy issues: Policy Coherence for Development, the new multiannual EU budget and its effects for the NGDO sector, European Year for Development, Sustainable Development Goals …) and facilitating the Working Groups of the platform (Policy/Advocacy, Development Education, Humanitarian Aid) by fostering sharing lessons learnt and good practices among the members. For instance, in November we organized a workshop on effective campaigning tools relevant for the Romanian context, as to better prepare the members who will be engaged in promoting the European Year for Development (which will be celebrated in 2015).

FOND connects its members with the regional and international context in two ways: It provides a direct connection with potential partners from Romania’s ODA priority countries, by organizing NGO events to support networking, study visits and project writing, such as: The Black Sea NGO Forum (organized since 2008), The Romania-R. Moldova NGO Forum (2010, 2011) which later developed in the Mobility Fund for Experts from Romania and R. Moldova (2013, 2014). This year’s edition of the Black Sea NGO Forum will take place in early December (8-10) in Kiev.

In addition, FOND is an active member of The European Confederation of NGOs in Development and Relief (CONCORD) and the International Forum of National NGOs Platform, as well as a partner in two European projects with other similar platforms from the European Union. More recently, FOND has been engaged with the Beyond 2015 campaign by taking part in the European Task Force of this initiative. These connections provide the members with updated and digested information on the development debates at the European and global level and networking opportunities (identifying partners, resource persons, relevant good practices…) and also the opportunity to promote the members’ interest and priorities at the European level. It brings visibility to FOND and its members. Since this year, FOND even has a representative elected in CONCORD Board.

Alexandra: What could be the contribution of the Romanian NGOs in the overall debate that will lead to the new international development agenda?

Adela: The Romanian NGOs provide relevant input on what the priorities should be for the new agenda, based on their experience of promoting the MGDs and on the needs of the beneficiaries of their projects. Their contribution has been emphasized during the last edition of the Romanian Camp VII (which I have already mentioned above) and also is being used as valuable input for the debates at the regional level through our involvement in CONCORD (Beyond 2015 – European Task Force).

Alexandra: What kind of new synergies, partnerships and policies do you envisage for FOND in the near future in order to address the new SDGs both at national and regional level?

Adela: FOND will continue strengthening its current partnerships at national level (with the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other relevant national stakeholders, such as the Parliament) and at European level (CONCORD and the European institutions, especially the European Parliament). At the international level, we’re exploring the opportunity to promote again global campaigns such as Action/2015, initiated by the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP). And of course, we are open to other partnership proposals from other NGOs or different actors interested in this issue.

Throughout history, humans have developed by learning, creating new ways to improve their life and in the process they amassed a large body of knowledge which was and still is currently transmitted to new generations through education. The knowledge and skills an education confers is merely an instrument and its purpose depends entirely on the individual possessing it. For the most part of history, humans have used knowledge only to improve their way of life usually at the cost of the environment but today we are faced with its unsustainability. Therefore, I shall argue that the best way of surpassing the challenge of sustainable development is enhancing our current system of education to include more aspects of sustainability. This is what I consider to be the most pressing need that should be globally addressed and highlighted by the new development agenda.

Emphasizing education

 Currently, education has been an important part of global development as one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which consists of achieving universal primary education. Over the years, the level of education did improve but it can be argued that without first eliminating poverty and hunger and also improving a child’s health, education cannot be a priority. For example, in Malawi, Africa, ‘attending school now is a hit-and-miss affair. Children are in and out of school with illness. Their attendance depends on how urgently they are needed at home to fetch water and firewood, or to care for siblings or cousins; on whether they can afford to buy supplies, a uniform, and pay local fees; and on the safety of walking several kilometers to the school itself’ (Sachs 2005, p.23).

On some level, all MDGs are interdependent but if the aforementioned problems can be reduced, through short-term solutions like foreign aid, to a scale that will permit children to attend school then education will become the force that drives global development. This can be accomplished through a few steps.

First of all, after achieving a basic level of well-being that allows families to send their children to school, education will eventually confer individuals the knowledge and skills necessary to improve their economic standing. They will be sufficiently competent to occupy better positions in a society with higher incomes and thus evading poverty and hunger. ’It is well established that the distribution of personal incomes in society is strongly related to the amount of education people have had. Generally speaking, more schooling means higher lifetime incomes’ (UNESCO 2005, p.40) Although a quality education that provides useful cognitive skills is more important than a quantitative one (UNESCO 2005), numerous studies have found that ‘the rate of return to schooling across countries is centered at about 10%, with returns higher for low-income countries, for lower levels of schooling, and frequently for women’ (Hanushek  & Wößmann 2007, p.2). Basically, an analysis of education and income levels leads to the conclusion that one year of education is worth a 10% increased income. This mechanism is why education is an excellent instrument for increasing the economic and social mobility of individuals that contribute to the development of a state by improving its human capital.

Another major benefit of education is that it leads to the improved health of individuals. Educated persons are able to adopt a healthy way of living by knowing all sorts of habits that sustain and prolong life. More importantly they are ‘better prepared to prevent diseases and to use health services effectively. A woman with six or more years of education is more likely to seek prenatal care, assisted childbirth, and postnatal care, reducing the risk of maternal and child mortality illness’ (Center for Global Development, 2002.).

At this point it is evident that education is a necessary investment for global development because better education leads to the improvement of other current MDGs and numerous benefits like better governance. But what the previous decades have shown us is that education, even in developed countries, has not brought large scale awareness about the lack of sustainability of our way of life. The prevalent mindset adopted through education is consumerism with too little regard to caring and preserving the environment. This type of education is a part of the problem but it can also be a part of the solution because it ‘is essential for improving the capacity of people to address environmental and development issues, which are inextricably tied to sustainable development’(Hopkins & McKeon 1999, p.1).

Recognizing the importance of education to all other aspects of development and that it is essential to sustainability, the United Nations established the practice of Education for Sustainable Development (EDS) and respectively, a Decade of EDS (2005-2014) led by UNESCO. In its view, EDS ‘allows every human being to acquire the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary to shape a sustainable future. EDS means including key sustainable development issues into teaching and learning; it also requires participatory teaching and learning methods that motivate and empower learners to change their behavior and take action for sustainable development’(UNESCO, n.d.). In order for this new curriculum in education to be successful it needs to be preceded by a change in people’s mentality. Individuals must first learn to care to protect the world. As Stephen Sterling stated EDS is more than simply adding sustainability concepts to the curriculum but also a cultural shift in education and learning, based on a more ecological or relational view of the world.(Sterling 2001).

            The importance of education in our pursuit of sustainable development is highlighted by two major aspects. First of all, education is strongly related with technological advancement. The better educated and knowledgeable an individual is, the higher the chance that he will be able to make scientific discoveries that improve the sustainability of our way of life. The best example is the large scale use of clean, renewable energy like solar and wind power that were made possible by dedicated people who research such issues. Without the proper education, these individuals would not have been able to do so. Further scientific discoveries and technological improvements can render obsolete or at least minimize the damage of our current polluting ways of producing energy and other products.

Secondly, the progress of technology tends to be rather slow when compared with the urgency of our problems, so in order to develop in a sustainable manner we have to better manage our resources. The current system and mentality has led to an immense waste and although our current technology can minimize it, not much effort has been put into it because many do not care about the consequences or either they are not aware of the impact our wasteful way of life has on others and the planet. To this problem, one of the best solutions is an education for sustainable development that can change people’s mindset and bring awareness on how our actions affect the world. ‘For example, overconsumption of consumer goods such as paper leads to deforestation, which may contribute to global climate change. The ability to consider an issue from the view of different stakeholders is essential to sustainable development education’ (Hopkins & McKeon 1999, p.4). This example brings up the problem of recycling and its still small scale practice, the massive waste of roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption (FOA, 2011). Food that people in the least developed countries are in dire need of and also other resources that are squandered. By including even in basic level of education, more knowledge, skills and values that promote sustainability, these challenges can be surpassed.

Finally, the most important reason why education must be emphasized among all other development goals is because eliminating poverty, hunger, inequality and combating diseases does not bring us closer to a sustainable world. But an enhanced education can solve poverty and most of the problems associated with income insufficiency by improving economic growth; it can lead to higher life expectancy and pave the way to a sustainable world through technological improvements and better resource management.

Conclusion

In spite of all its benefits, education isn’t a miracle solution to all the problems of global sustainable development. To reach a high level of EDS is itself a challenge and ‘while many nations around the world have embraced the need for education in achieving sustainability, only limited progress has been made on any level. This lack of progress stems from many sources. In some cases, a lack of vision or awareness has impeded progress. In others, it is a lack of policy or funding’ (Hopkins & McKeon 1999, p.1). But of all the possible solutions and means to achieve sustainable development, education is still the best option we have at the moment. At the very least, the awareness for the need of sustainability has grown, considering the changes in my mindset to be a testimony of this fact among the growing number of people and organizations who desire a sustainable world.

References

Center for Global Development. 2002, Education and the Developing World Brief, viewed 27 October 2014, http://www.cgdev.org/files/2844_file_EDUCATON1.pdf.

Food and Agriculture Organization for The United Nations, 2011, Global food losses and food waste – Extent, Causes and Prevention, Rome.

Hanushek, Eric A. & Wößmann, Ludger, 2007, Education Quality and Economic Growth, World Bank, Washington.

Hopkins, Charles A. & McKeown, 1999, Rosalyn, ‘Education for Sustainable Development’, Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy, Vol. 14, No.4.

Sachs, Jeffrey, 2005, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, Penguin Press, New York.

Sterling, Stephen, 2001, Sustainable Education: Re-visioning Learning and Change, Green Books, Chicago.

UNESCO, 2005, Global Monitoring Report: The Quality Imperative, UNESCO Publishing, Paris.

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Mr Emil Luchian is a graduate from the University of Bucharest, the faculty of Philosophy, where he obtained his BA degree in European Studies. His research areas of interests are in the field of International Relations and Geopolitics. Mr Emil Luchian wrote for PoliticAll and completed an internship at the Foreign Intelligence Service (SIE) in Bucharest.

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Photo credits:

World Bank/Alfredo Srur, “A student in a classroom in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.”

    The paper investigates the connection between conflict and sustainable development seen as a target of the international community. The paper aims to demonstrate that the current MDGs and future SDGs will not be achieved if greater emphasise will not be placed on the prevention and management of conflicts. Violent conflicts matter because they are fertile ground for poverty, regional instability, terrorism, diseases and death. Therefore, in order to eradicate all these problems, conflict should be placed on the policy map and measures for preventing, managing and resolving should be foreseen.

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Following the Millennium Summit from 2000, UN has adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a series of 8 targets to be fulfilled by 2015, aiming at eradicating and solving the following humankind problems: poverty and hungry, lack of education, child mortality, gender inequality, HIV and other diseases, environmental degradation, through a global partnership formed by international organizations and states.

As progress reports show, by the end of 2014, many developing countries were on their way to achieve the MDGs except the conflict affected states. Only 12 of 40 conflict affected states have reached one or two MDGs (like reducing poverty), an improved situation compared to 2011, when none of them reached any MDGs. However, the progress remains a modest one, the conflict affected states severely lagging “behind the rest of the developing countries in terms of meeting the MDGs”. (World Bank 2013, 2)

Given the negative relation between conflict and the possibility of reaching the MDGs, the current essay argues on the importance of considering and therefore treating the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts as one of the new Sustainable Development Goals in order to achieve all the other targets formulated by the UN.

In this paper, we understand “conflict” as organized violence which includes: “state actions against other states or against civilians, civil wars, electoral violence between opposing sides, communal clashes based on regional, ethnic, religious or other group identities or competing economic interests, gang-based violence and organized crime and international non-state armed movements with ideological aims.” (World Bank 2011, xv) Since 1945, the number of conflicts registered in the human history reached 331, with 32 ongoing conflicts leaving behind 26 million deaths.(Marshall, 2014) Although the number of inter-states wars, civil wars and coup d’état has fallen since 1990, the Global Peace Index 2014 Report considers that the overall trend of the world has seen a slight deterioration of peace since 2007. The conflicts taken place today are affecting the same states repeatedly diminishing their capacity to develop and prosper. According to the World Bank , “90% of the last decade’s civil wars occurred in countries that had already had a civil war in the last 30 years” (World Bank 2011, 2).

Scholars argue the existence of a connection between economic growth/decline and conflict. According to this theory, where countries start to develop, wars are becoming less possible because people are more interested in keeping the wellbeing; where development fails, states are at risk of conflict by slowing down the economy and concentrating the precarious resources in the hands of small group generating frustration for the others. Paul Collier, in his masterpiece “The Bottom Billion”, claims that “unless economic growth takes place post-conflict, a nation has a 44% chance of slipping back into violence”. (Mercy Corp 2011, 3) The economists from the World Bank go further advancing the idea of a “violence trap”: countries are poor because they are affected by conflict and are dragged into conflict because they are poor. People join violent movement due to the lack of opportunities caused by country instability. (Collier et all 2003, 1) Therefore, the “violence trap” cannot be overcome unless economic situation is improved at a national level, institutions gain public trust and start functioning properly and resources distribution is becoming more equal. Walton (Helpdesk Research Report 2011) mentions that civil wars often start following growth collapses (the growth rate during the five years prior to conflict averages -0.5%, compared to 2% in peaceful countries) associated to other factors as demographic consistency of the population, external shocks, distribution and exploitation of natural resources. Because of its deep negative relation with development, conflict puts in danger the reach of any MDGs and in future of any Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in conflict affected states with direct effects on their neighbors. The economic cost of violence at global level was in 2013, 9.8 trillion USD. The amount equates to 11.3% of the global GDP or to 1.350 USD per person, a figure which could lift out of poverty the total population living under the 2$ threshold. (Institute for Economic& Peace 2014, 3)

From a social and human costs perspective, conflict affects today almost one-and-a-half billion people which are becoming more exposed to the lack of food, education and health, all of them goals set by UN. According to World Bank, one in four people on the planet lives in areas affected by conflict. People in conflicted-affected areas are “twice as likely to be under-nourished as those in other developing countries”, thrice as likely to be unable to go to school, twice as likely to die before age five and more than “twice as likely to lack clean water” (World Bank 2011, 5). UNHCR appreciate that “at the end of 2013, 51.2 million people were forcibly displaced due to violence”. (UNHCR 2013, 2) Developing countries host 86% of the world’s refugees adding an additional burden to their weak economy by providing additional social services. Refugees may compete with local citizens for scarce resources inducing tensions (Gomez& Christensen 2010, 7). Poverty represents a challenge to overcome in conflict. It is estimated that the average agriculture production losses reach 12% per year. “War, therefore, by increasing the gap between food production and need, aggravates poverty and hunger, and consequently promotes continued dependence on food aid”. (UNEP 2006, para.3) One of the main problems in conflict affected states is related to health. Violence results in millions of people injured, traumatized and exposed to communicable and non-communicable diseases. (Roberts 2012) For instance, polio outbreak in Middle East during Syria conflict after being totally eradicated. (Vargha, 2014) Although getting an education is an universal human right, 40 million children from conflict affected states are out of school (War child, “Access to education”, para. 4). Proliferation of attacks on schools (3.600 in 2013 according to Tran 2013 para. 2), lack of personal documents, killing or injuring of teachers and pupils, flee of families, lack of financial support to pursue education, force children to renounce to school.

Conflict affects in a large measure another goal set in MDGs: gender equality. During conflict time, woman vulnerability increases opening the path to sexual abuses, force marriage, exploitation, domestic violence and trafficking. (Gomez& Christensen 2010, 12) Conflict has a negative impact on environment. Refugee camp can reshape the landscape by excessively use of local resources. “Habitat degradation, reduced access to water points […], species loss, alteration of the natural food chain, and additional pressure on biodiversity” are other effects that conflict may have over the environment. (UNEP 2006, para.13)

Conclusion: Given the economic, social and human costs, as well as the negative impact on health, education, gender equality and environment, the new SDGs should include also the prevention, management and resolution of conflict as one of the main targets.

References:

Collier P., Elliott L., Hegre H., Hoeffler A., Reynal-Querol M., Sambanis N., Breaking the Conflict Trap. Civil War and Development Policy, 2003, The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank, Washington, available on <http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/IW3P/IB/2003/06/30/000094946_0306190405396/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf>, last accessed on 4^th of November 2014.

Institute for Economic&Peace, Global Peace Index 2014. Measuring peace and assessing country risk, Sidney, 2014, available on <http://www.visionofhumanity.org/sites/default/files/2014%20Global%20Peace%20Index%20REPORT.pdf>, last accessed on 4^th of November 2014.

Marshal, M. G., State Fragility and Warfare in the Global System 2013, available on <www.systemicpeace.org/warlist.htm>,  last accessed on 4^th of November 2014.

Mercy Corps, Evaluation and Assessment of Poverty and Conflict Interventions. Uganda Case Study Report, 2011, available on <http://www.mercycorps.org/sites/default/files/eapc_uganda_case_study_2011-07-28_final.pdf>, last accessed on 4^th of November 2014.

Puerto Gomez M., Christensen A., The Impacts of Refugees on Neighboring Countries: A Development Challenge, 2010, Washington DC, available on <http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTWDR2011/Resources/6406082-1283882418764/WDR_Background_Paper_Refugees.pdf>, last accessed on 4^th of November 2014.

Roberts B., Patel P., Mckee M., “Noncommunicable diseases and post-conflict countries”, Bulletin of World Health Organization, 2012, 90(1): 2-2A, available on <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3260582/>, last accessed on 4^th of November 2014.

Tran M., “War denying millions of children an education”, The Guardian ,12 July 2013, available on <http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/jul/12/war-denying-children-education>, last accessed on 4^th of November 2014.

Vargha D, “Outbreaks of disease and war: polio’s history with conflict”, The Guardian, 8 May 2014, available on <http://www.theguardian.com/science/the-h-word/2014/may/08/outbreaks-of-disease-and-war-polio-conflict-cold-war>, last accessed on 4^th of November 2014.

United Nations Environment Programme, “Environmental and Socioeconomic Impacts of Armed Conflict”, 2006, available on <http://www.unep.org/dewa/Africa/publications/AEO-2/content/203.htm>, last accessed on 4^th of November 2014.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, “War’s Human cost. UNHCR Global Trends 2013”, Geneva 2014, available on <http://www.unhcr.org/5399a14f9.html>, last accessed on 4^th of November 2014.

Walton O., “Helpdesk Research Report: Global Statistics on Conflict, Violence, Security and Justice”, 2011, available on <http://www.gsdrc.org/docs/open/HD790.pdf>, last accessed on 4^th of November 2014.

War child, “Acces to education”, n.a., available on <www.warchild.org.uk/issues/access-education> , last accessed on 4^th of November 2014.

World Bank, “Stop Conflict, Reduce Fragility and End Poverty: Doing Things Different in Fragile and Conflict affected Situations”, 2013, Washington DC, available on <http://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/Feature%20Story/Stop_Conflict_Reduce_Fragility_End_Poverty.pdf>, last accessed on 4^th of November 2014.

World Bank, 2011 World Development Report on Conflict, Security and Development, 2011, Washington DC, available on <http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWDRS/Resources/WDR2011_Full_Text.pdf>, last accessed on 4^th of November 2014.

World Bank, 2013 World Development Report on Jobs, 2013, Washington DC, available on <http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTNWDR2013/Resources/8258024-1320950747192/8260293-1322665883147/WDR_2013_Report.pdf>, last accessed on 4^th of November 2014.

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Ms Roxana Romanica is a Master student in International Development at the University of A.I. Cuza from Iasi. Roxana is passionate for conflict resolution and peacebuilding and was involved in educational projects addressed to Syrian Refugees from Turkey. She is coordinating projects in democracy field and militates for peace in Syria and Palestine.

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Photo credits: Alexandra Sabou, May 2014, Gal/i region, Abkhazia

What is ASAP-Romania?

ASAP Romania is an initiative of Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP), an international network helping scholars and students enhance their impact on global poverty. It does so by promoting collaboration amongst poverty-focused academics, by helping them reach out to broader audiences on issues of poverty, and by helping them turn their expertise into impact through specific intervention projects as well as campaigns on specific issues.

ASAP’s president, Prof. Thomas Pogge of Yale University, announced the initiative of building the Romanian Chapter during his visit at the 2014 Romanian Development Camp, where he gave two lectures regarding the role of academia in combating global poverty and how to track progress against deprivations.

How is ASAP distinctive from other poverty-focused organizations?

First and foremost, among ASAP’s members are internationally recognized experts who are contributing with rigorous reviews on the work on poverty, trying to bring the research and the solutions proposed at the academic levels outside the ivory tower and have a real impact. Second, its network is extended globally, including numerous universities and academics, especially promoting North-South collaboration among its members, with a strong focus on creating opportunities for those who face barriers to full participation in the global academic dialogue.

ASAP is headed by Prof. Thomas Pogge (Yale University) along with the board of directors. The advisory board includes prominent academics such as Prof. Peter Singer (Princeton), Prof. Paul Collier (Oxford), Prof. Ha-Joon Chang (Cambridge), Prof. Sabina Alkire (Oxford), Branko Milanovic (CUNY, formerly a leading economist at the World Bank) and many other experts working in the field of poverty.

Why Romania?

ASAP constantly aims to develop its network by opening chapters in parts of the world that it did not cover before. Eastern Europe represents such a region, and Romania is a country presenting two important characteristics for this choice. First, Romania is one of the European countries most affected by poverty and where action is urgently needed. Second, Romanian academics should be able to participate with their work in the global academic dialogue and increase their impact on poverty eradication.

How can Romanian scholars contribute to ASAP’s mission?

The overarching aim of ASAP is to contribute to the eradication of severe poverty worldwide and to ensure that poverty policy and development efforts are guided by rigorous empirical and normative scholarship. ASAP’s ultimate concern is for people, not for countries, thus it focuses on poor people from both affluent and less-affluent countries.

ASAP Romania is on the path of developing the first chapter in Eastern Europe whichwill be involved in ASAP’s international projects as well as develop local/regional related projects.In this context, we invite Romanian academics and experts whose work is focused on poverty to get involved or to become members, and to participate in our Global Colleagues Project. ASAP’s members are eager to share their expertise in public debates and policy dialogues where they have the opportunity to be heard and to work with their peers around the world.

Who else is contributing to this mission?

ASAP has Chapters launched or in development in Austria, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, India, Italy, Germany, Mexico, Oceania, Romania, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States and West Africa. In total, more than 1,200 ASAP members work and study in universities, research centers and NGOs worldwide.

In the context of the upcoming SDGs, how could academics enhance their positive impact on poverty? / Could you give a concrete example of ASAP’s work regarding the SDGs?

In 2012 at Yale University, ASAP has launched the Institutional Reform Goals project, a research and advocacy project that aims for the reform of supranational institutional rules and practices that are worsening poverty globally.

Why should we care about systemic reform?

 A systemic reform of global institutions is a focal point in the debate regarding the post-2015 development agenda. Given the time-sensitive nature of this debate and official deliberations on the subject, IRG’s short-term focus is on the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This means our objective is to ensure that the emerging SDGs are made as good as they can realistically be.  Like many other civil society organizations, we call for the inclusion of meaningful language, in the new development goals, on issues such as human rights and inequality reduction.  Our focus, however, is to advocate for the strongest possible emphasis on accountability, and on systemic reforms of global institutions. We will intervene in the ongoing post-2015 debates through a variety of methods, such as producing and circulating original, research-based policy briefs articulating our objectives, and organizing awareness-raising campaigns with collaborating institutions.

Such an undertaking was already successfully carried out combining the efforts of ASAP’s global network. More than 50 experts signed an open letter to Ban Ki-moon, UN’s Secretary General, asking him to push for the inclusion of specific policies in the SDGs that would stop tax abuse, a practice that severely affects developing countries and increases global poverty. The letter circulated in a petition campaign, where ASAP Romania made an important contribution toward raising the symbolic number of 2015 signatures. This shows a rising interest on behalf of Romanian citizens to have a voice in the global decision-making.

Moving into the longer term, we have identified ten focus areas in which the reform of global rules and practices could have a major impact on human development and poverty eradication: (1) illicit financial flows, (2)international resource and borrowing privileges, (3) intellectual property law, (4) democratization and accountability, (5) international labor standards, (6) international trade, (7) environmental sustainability and climate change, (8) global migration, (9) the arms trade, and (10) debt.

For each of our focus areas, we will:

1. Articulate politically feasible institutional reform goals and illustrative targetsto be presented through research-backed policy papers.
2. Work to build a broad coalition of academics and civil society members to support our call for new institutional reform goals.
3. Promote these institutional reform goals widely (as a first step, by engaging with and intervening in the post-MDG debate).

ASAP’s IRG project is ambitious and unique. While other NGOs are campaigning in many of the 10 areas we have identified, very few understand them as systematically interrelated.

The starting point of this article is the assertion that development policies aim to modify certain sets of behaviour which ultimately strive at improving human life and potential, primarily developing infrastructures and building the means for that new behaviour to be sustainable and become part of the local mindset.

Some time ago I took part in a heated debate on whether or not culture should play a role in the framework of international aid and more importantly, in the process and management of the aid efforts. Of course, if we were to debate an abstract situation, we would think of culture as a factor which would logically have to be taken in account as long as one functions within a cultural environment which in itself is tributary to its own characteristics. However, as most aid programs do not deal with abstract matters but actual forms of human sufferance, things can get a little uncomfortable to say the least.

Before we charge head-on into sensitive matters though, let us spend a little more time on some abstract yet very tangible aspects of intercultural communication. Thus, there would be two main attitudes with which we could start the abovementioned debate: an ethnocentric one or one of cultural relativism. Both these attitudes towards culture and ultimately people and their mindsets, have traps that one may become a victim of. Nonetheless, behaviour that is practiced over and over again shapes our personalities up to the point that some behaviours are not necessarily logical or beneficial but are regarded as positive because of their wide-spread use and tradition.

If we were to adopt an ethnocentric attitude (from a Western/European point of view), then we would acknowledge that there are several universal truths to this world and human rights are definitely among them. Thus, the female genitalia mutilation phenomenon that takes place in certain parts of the world is something immoral, unlawful, unjust and illegal and it goes against the very principles that our society is based on. If we were to engage with a community that enforces the aforementioned practices, the way we would implement an aid project would be to confront the phenomenon head-on and as long as we can do something, prevent any and every case that it is in our power to stop. With the adequate political support and funding of the project, we would hope that in time we would reach a goal that a certain percent of the young female population would not have to suffer from genitalia mutilation.

If our choice was a culturally relativist attitude, we would first acknowledge that even if female genitalia mutilation is immoral, unlawful, unjust and illegal in our own culture, it may be an accepted practice in that place where it is practiced. Nevertheless, our purpose in implementing an aid project on the subject within that particular area would be the same, which would still be reducing the percent of young females that are mutilated in this way. However, the approach would have to be a little different, underlining the mindset, not necessarily the practices themselves. Of course, practices are important but the society that practices them is the ultimate arbiter of their use. A certain cultural community, just like markets, has a certain degree of permeability. This means that certain behaviours of the people from that community may permit us to engage with them to a lesser or to a greater degree. The less permeable a cultural community is (of course, also taking in account our instruments of engagement), the harder it is to produce change in people’s mindsets. Inescapably, international aid projects have a start date and an end one but the people that live in the targeted communities will continue to exist there long after the foreign change agent has been long gone. Also, it is important to note that targeted communities are not isolated in most cases, they continually interact with other communities which may or may not retain traditional behaviours related to the targeted phenomenon.

The two attitudes described are ideal types, an optimal attitude most probably benefiting from both the concepts presented. However, the question remains: What happens after the project ends or attention focuses from one region to another? Culture is hard to pinpoint within a statistical report but it exists nonetheless. Practiced behaviour that gives birth to certain mindsets weave people together like an invisible web which can garner an extraordinary counter-force to change, even if the change is, paradoxically, a beneficial one to that society. The web, on the other hand, is as strong as the individual strains that construct it and in this case the people and the families that practice female genitalia mutilation.

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Mr Călin Georgia is PhD candidate at Babes-Bolyai University and managing partner at The Intercultural Group, a network specialized in offering cultural intelligence services.

He holds a BA degree in Law and a MA degree in Political Science and International Relations and specialized in informal Islamic justice systems and Intercultural Communication. His studies are backed up by his professional experience; Călin has worked in the legal field for two years, between 2008 and 2010, when he started to work for the Institute of Turkish and Central-Asian Studies. In 2013 he became a licensed trainer and started his Ph.D programme and teaching activities at Babes-Bolyai University (Romania). He coordinates and facilitates Intercultural Communication trainings and seminars, using both formal and non-formal education.

Photo credits: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan, UNDP.

Contributing to Peace Consolidation in Afghanistan (CPCA):A Joint Romanian-Afghan Effort

The Contributing to Peace Consolidation in Afghanistan project represents a one year joint Romanian-Afghan endeavour, having as aim the highlight and analysis of peace consolidation related capacity building gaps, challenges, achievements, lessons identified, and “best-fit” solutions in Afghanistan on the eve of the 2014 transition process and the 2015 MDG mark. As an integral part of Romania’s Official Development Assistance policy, the implementation of the project was made possible with the financial assistance of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from the Official Development Assistance budget, in partnership with UNDP Bratislava Regional Centre, and is being implemented by the Peace Action, Training and Research Institute of Romania (PATRIR) in partnership with the Cooperation for Peace and Unity (CPAU) from Afghanistan.

The CPCA project was developed as a result of a series of consultations with various Afghan and international organisations engaged in peace consolidation and sustainable development activities, which have highlighted the need i) to enhance Afghan ownership over peacebuilding and peace consolidation capacities required by a peaceful transition process; ii) to highlight the link between the nationally and locally owned peacebuilding and peace consolidation programmes and the successful engagement with the MDG targets; iii) to boost national, local and community based capacities to reach the MDG targets in the post-2014 transition period through the use of peacebuilding and peace consolidation skills and knowledge; iv) to place a central role on the traditional Afghan peacebuilding and peace consolidation practices; v) to strengthen the role of Afghan civil society in development of such capacities for national and local use.

In order to reply to these needs, the project had foreseen the development and implementation of a series of activities with multi-stakeholder character, in two phases: a needs assessment phase and a capacity building phase. The target group chosen for the project included key government/ state actors, policy and decision makers dealing with development, peacebuilding and peace consolidation in Afghanistan, key civil society/ non-state actors active in the same or adjacent domains, staff of UN agencies and peacekeeping missions and EUPOL personnel.

The first phase of the project was made up of a four months long capacity building needs assessment process, containing a comprehensive desk review process of relevant Afghan and international reports and resource materials on the status of peacebuilding, peace consolidation and sustainable development capacities and programmes existent within the country. Coupled with this, the assessment team had undertaken a multi-stakeholder interview and survey process, involving representatives of the before-mentioned target group. After having overviewed more than two hundred online and hard-copy documents, more than thirty five online interviews and lectures, and having conducted more than sixty interviews and surveys, the seven-member assessment team had drawn a series of conclusions and presented relevant recommendations regarding the link between peace consolidation and development, peace consolidation and development related capacity building needs on the ground and existing strengths on which to build further efforts. The second phase of the project involved a four-day capacity building programme entitled “Collaborative Efforts for Building National Capacities for Peace Consolidation and Sustainable Development in Afghanistan”, bringing together fifteen Afghan practitioners engaged in peacebuilding, peace consolidation and sustainable development.

The findings of the project show that “defining and contributing to the process of peace consolidation in the 2014’s Afghanistan proves to be a challenging undertaking, due to the narrow connotation such a concept has received in the light of the impending security transition: that of general peace-making” (Observation made by UNDP Afghanistan staff of Afghan nationality). Basing strategy and action on the principles of systemic engagement, multi-stakeholder approach, national ownership and legitimacy, cumulative impact creation and evidence-based / demand-driven engagement aids in expanding and creating an integrated understanding of the concept itself, towards constructive and sustainable results. As such, peace consolidation needs to be understood from the perspective of positive peace creation, in which, based on the absence of direct violence, equitable and integrated outputs and outcomes are developed in the spheres of economy, social services, politics, justice, human relations, and constructive conflict resolution. Essentially, successful peace consolidation may be achieved only through the interrelated cycle of peacebuilding/ peacemaking/ peacekeeping, sustainable development, and nationally owned capacities (Kacsó et al. 2014).”

Further on, the assessment team concluded that there is a series of historical and contextual factors impacting and being impacted by the lack of proper capacity, among which the general state-building project, the military and human security situation, the socio-economic and cultural realities and the available resources. The customization of international capacity building programmes to the particularities of Afghanistan’s culture and context is quite scarce, which is coupled with a low level of local and national ownership of capacities and capacity building programmes serving peace consolidation and development. Due to a siloed work practice among the different actors, the cumulative impact of the capacity building programmes is minimal, especially when most of the programmes provided follow a supply- and donor-driven approach and little integration of previous lessons learned and local capacities.

The appraisal of existing capacity building strengths in Afghanistan has highlighted a series of principles aiding the consolidation of capacity building. Among these we may find a strive towards unitary planning and strategizing based on comprehensive situation analysis, country-led processes, the respect of dialogic principles in capacity building processes, and several others. The high awareness level of the interconnectedness between peace, conflict and development is coupled with gradually strengthened cooperation mechanisms between actors, both contributing to the decrease of dependency on foreign peace consolidation and sustainable development capacities. In order to contribute to the sustainable development of Afghanistan, the majority of actors attempt to link to a more or lesser degree with national peace consolidation and sustainable development objectives, traditional Afghan peace mechanisms, and the Afghan National Development Strategy in particular.

The project, which is scheduled to end in December 2014, has managed to link closely not only with the existing MDG agenda, but also with the upcoming post-2015 UN Development one. Tackling the link between development and peace and security concerns, the project was developed and implemented closely in line with the UN System Task Team’s “Peace and Security” Thematic Think Piece, offering a set of recommendations in the direction of systemic peacebuilding strategy development and implementation, and related capacity building requirements.

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Dr. Zsuzsanna Kacsó is a peacebuilding and violence prevention practitioner and consultant of the Peace Action, Training and Research Institute of Romania (PATRIR) in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She is also associate professor on conflict analysis within the Babes-Bolayi University. Her areas of expertise include: conflict analysis, strategic & systemic peacebuilding, electoral violence prevention, future planning and scenario building, organisational development and knowledge management. She has worked in Romania, Moldova-Transdniestria, Singapore, UK, Northern Ireland, Liberia, Nepal, Egypt.

Ms Adelina Decean is an Associate of the Department of Peace Operations (PATRIR) and the Coordinator of the International Peace and Development Training Center of PATRIR. Her experience emerges from engagements at the level of civil society as well as international organizations and the UN.  Her previous and current engagements have included projects in the MENA region, in Lebanon and in Nepal. Adelina holds a bachelor degree in International Relations and European Studies and two MA degrees in Sustainable Development and in International Development Studies, both from the Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca.

The emergence of a long-awaited global consensus on the MDGs during the 2000 United Nations Millennium Summit laid the foundations of a new era of worldwide cooperation and common development framework. With the imminent expiry of the eight time-bound goals rapidly approaching, the international community has been actively engaged in discussions on how to advance and reshape the United Nations development agenda beyond 2015. In the light of the latest shifts in human mobility and migration patterns, it becomes clear that migration must be brought to the negotiation table. More specifically, since the adoption of the original MDGs in 2000, international migration flows have increased by approximately one third, from 175 million international migrants in 2000 to 232 million in 2013 (UN DESA 2013). The same source highlights shifting global migration trends, with a substantial increase in the global South – South migration (between developing countries) which almost equals the South –North migration (from developing to developed countries) (UN DESA 2013).
Reaching a global consensus on the adoption of the eight MDGs was a long-term process which took almost 10 years. This might account for the fact that migration – a politically controversial topic, and at the same time a goal difficult to measure – slipped away from the negotiation table. It is interesting to note the shift in perception of migration at the time of the adoption of the MDGs and its evolution up to today. The 2001 UN Road map towards the implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration refers to migration as one of the factors contributing to the worsening of global malaria problem, and portrays migrants as “victims of discrimination, racism and intolerance” (UN General Assembly 2001). Fortunately, a departure from this point of view is to be seen in the 2005 final report of the UN Millennium Project, called “Investing in Development: A Practical Way to Achieve the MDGs” (UN Millennium Project 2005). More specifically, the report shows an evolution of the concept of migrants portraying them as agents of development in the context of poverty-alleviation. The migration-development nexus was reiterated in further conferences such as the Second Earth Summit in 2013 “Rio +20” UNGA High Level Dialogues (HLDs) in 2006 and 2013 as well (Lönnback 2014).

Why should migration be an integral part of the post-2015 development agenda?

Migration has the potential to boost both the economy of the country of origin and of the host country. Firstly, the remittances sent back home by migrants are crucial to reducing household poverty by providing an additional income which can be used in various ways in order to meet the family’s needs. According to the World Bank, remittances sent to developing countries exceed up to three times the amount of official development assistance received (The World Bank n.d.) and at the same time are comparable, if not higher than the export earnings of the recipient countries. For instance, in Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Philippines, remittances exceeded the total earnings from exports of goods and services. Another case in point is India, where in 2013 the value of remittances was higher than the earnings coming from the export services of its vibrant IT industry (The World Bank 2014).
Remittances have been shown to be an extremely powerful tool for poverty reduction in developing countries, which has been correlated with increased child schooling, especially among girls, as reported in Pakistan (Ratha 2013). Likewise, it has been shown that households which receive remittances tend to invest more in health care than those which do not receive remittances.
In the light of the illustrated impact, it becomes evident that migrant remittances actually contribute to the achievement of the original MDGs by reducing poverty and hunger (MDG 1), contributing to an increase in child schooling, including primary education (MDG 2) especially among girls, with positive impact on efforts to achieve gender equality (MDG 3). Furthermore, migrant remittances also contribute to health care improvement, which results in reduction of child mortality (MDG 4), maternal health improvement (MDG 5) and stepping up efforts in preventing or combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, other diseases (MDG 6) and ensuring environmental sustainability (MDG 7) by improving the access to safe water and sanitation.
Secondly, it has been argued that migrants can improve also the economy of the host country by “ tackling skills shortages and labour market bottlenecks.” (Andor 2014).
A recent study (OECD 2014) shows that the financial contribution that migrants make to the host country budgets through taxes and social security actually exceeds the benefits received. In addition, claims that migrants are draining the social welfare of the host country were found to be inaccurate by a report commissioned by the EC. It was shown that unemployed migrants represent a very small share of beneficiaries, with low impact on the social budgets of the host countries (Juravle et al. 2013). Beyond the taxes that migrants pay, they contribute to the development of the host countries by stimulating trade, investments and business.
Thirdly, migration also brings about an increase in the transfer of skills and innovation. For instance, in 2013, almost half of the patents applications in the U.S. were filed by foreign-born citizens. The same is valid also for the business sector where more than half of the start-ups in Silicon Valley were set up by citizens of foreign origin (Quittner 2014). Moreover, migrants are important agents for development since they facilitate links between private and public sectors in both country of origin and country of destination and can even act as “the basis of business partnerships, trade, and flows of investment” between the two countries (House of Commons International Development Committee 2004). By acting as the facilitators of development between home and host country, migrant further global partnership for development, contributing to the achievement of the last of the eight MDGs.

To conclude, migration can be a driver for development in both home and host country. This is not to say that migration does not pose challenges. However, if efficiently governed, it can become a win-win process for the main parties concerned, i.e. country of origin and of destination but most importantly, for the migrants themselves. In order to do so, it is necessary that the international community agrees that the migration discourse must re-shift its focus from border control policies which basically see migration rather as a problem than as a solution. Likewise, seeing migration only in economic terms will not do since migrants might run the risk “to be regarded as commodities, rather than as individuals entitled to the full enjoyment of their human rights” (The UN Committee on Migrant Workers 2005). Hence, migration should be dealt with from a holistic perspective within which human rights play a crucial role.
The post-2015 development agenda has the potential to successfully re-shift the focus from border control policies to the improvement of the quality of migration. Quality migration approach sees migration as a development enabler and hence not as a problem per se but as a solution. It implies the protection of migrants’ fundamental rights as human beings, protection of migrants’ labour rights as workers (decent work) and safe migration for potential and returning migrants. The human rights approach to migration and development should be understood in terms of quality improvement of the migration process and not in terms of increasing the number of migrants.
Given the migrants’ contribution to the development of both home and destination countries and their undeniable positive impact on the achievement of the original MDGs, migration ought to become an integral part of the post-2015 development strategy. This will not only pave the way for a gradual expansion of migrants’ rights but, in the words of Peter Sutherland, the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Representative for Migration “[…] perhaps even more important, it could change public perceptions of migrants, so that they are viewed as a blessing rather than a scourge.’’(Sutherland 2013). This is to say that the potential of migration potential as a development enabler cannot be fully achieved unless migrants’ human rights are protected and at the same time efforts are made to end the stigma and discrimination against migrants.

References
Andor, L 2014, ‘Labour Mobility in the European Union – The Inconvenient Truth’, Lecture at University of Bristol, Bristol, 10 February 2014
House of Commons International Development Committee and others, 2003, Migration and Development: How to make migration work for poverty reduction, Sixth report of Session, Volume 4.
Juravle, C; Weber, T; Canetta, E; Fries, T.E.; Kadunc, M, 2013. A fact finding analysis on the impact on the Member States’ social security systems of the entitlements of non-active intra-EU migrants to special non-contributory cash benefits and healthcare granted on the basis of residence, ICF GHK in association with Milieu Ltd.
Lönnback, L 2014. Integrating migration into the post-2015 United Nations Development Agenda. Bangkok and Washington, D.C.: International Organization for Migration and Migration Policy Institute.
OECD May 2014, Is migration good for the economy? Migration Policy Debates, Number 202, pp 1-4, viewed 20th October 2014, http://www.oecd.org/migration/mig/OECD%20Migration%20Policy%20Debates%20Numero%202.pdf
Quittner, J 2014, Not Made in America: Where U.S. Innovation Really Comes From. April 10, 2014, viewed 25th October 2014, http://www.inc.com/jeremy-quittner/foreign-patents-and-united-states-innovation.html
Ratha, D 2013. The Impact of Remittances on Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.
Sutherland, P 2013, Migration is development. 18 March 2013, viewed 25th October 2014, http://economia.icaew.com/opinion/march2013/migration-is-development
The World Bank n.d., Migration and Remittances, viewed 25th October, 2014, http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:20648762~pagePK:64257043~piPK:437376~theSitePK:4607,00.html
The World Bank 2014, Remittances to developing countries to stay robust this year, despite increased deportations of migrant workers, says WB, viewed 28 Oct. 2014, http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2014/04/11/remittances-developing-countries-deportations-migrant-workers-wb
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2013, Number of international migrants rises above 232 million, viewed 25th October 2014, http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/number-of-international-migrants-rises.html
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; United Nations;
UN Millennium Project 2005, Investing in development: a practical plan to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, New York.

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Ms Bianca-Ioanidia Mirea holds a BA from the University of Bucharest (Romania) and a master’s in European and International Studies from the University of Trento (Italy), specialising in Human Rights Protection.  Her main areas of interest are children and women’s rights, topics she has explored first hand as a Research/ field work intern in various countries. She worked as an intern on children’s rights at M.V. Foundation (India) and at the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (Austria).  Currently she is a Research Intern working on children’s and women  empowerment in Egypt.