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.

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.

Primary education for all children is crucially important in order to help them get off to the right start. A basic need and right for all children around a world enshrined as Millennium Development Goal no. 2, education is a multi-faceted issue that speaks about numerous challenges, problems and opportunities, different needs, different approaches and asks for an ongoing, accelerated and updated response both globally and locally.

It is already well-known that the country where a child is born determines the kind of education he or she will receive and, moreover, it influences their future professional endeavors and options in life. On average across countries, a child coming from Sub-Saharan African countries is less likely to complete primary school than a child from Western Europe. However, in many countries with high primary completion rates, large numbers of school dropouts or out-of-school youth need our attention too.

Teach for all is an international movement that already exists in 36 countries and should be implemented in numerous other rich and poor countries that face both different and similar education-related problems. Quality education is needed everywhere, from New-York to Mumbay and Săcele, and other small cities and villages in Romania where educators from Teach for Romania (the Romanian branch of Teach for all) teach their pupils English, Arts and other subjects, and above everything, motivate them into finding out what future they want and why school is important in their endeavours.

According to the World Development Indicators, the Gross Enrollment Rate (GER) at the primary level in Romania reached 94.2 percent in 2012 (GER measures the total enrollment in primary education divided by the population size of primary-school-aged children, including here older persons attending primary school).  However, despite the fact that these numbers should make us optimistic about the situation of primary education in Romania, the 17.5 percent rate of school dropouts in Romania in 2013 also deserves warrant attention. In addition to this, it is worth mentioning that the first cause of school dropouts in Romania remains poverty.

While almost every school teacher in Romania dreams at working in comfortable and modern environments, teachers from Teach for Romania have committed themselves to the most troubled and less appreciated schools. The first generation of teachers (teachies) have been selected for a 2 years mandate to literally serve the nation. They left behind their fast-paced lives in corporations, offices and universities to go to small villages, impoverished cities and neighborhoods to teach, motivate, break stereotypes and perform a gradual change in the minds of pupils living on the edge of poverty. To be a teacher in Romania is neither very popular, nor financially attractive; therefore, being part of this program asks for motivation, strong leadership skills and enthusiasm. Moreover, teachers involved in the program should believe in the power of education and make a goal out of reducing education inequity in Romania.

Teach for Romania educators have been recruited based on a highly selective procedure and afterwards, they have been part of very demanding training sessions which prepared them for the school work in empoverished environments.

Fully integrated into the school team of their institutions, the 18 teachies just started their work in many schools all over Romania.

Interviewing Ms Corina Puiu, co-founder and Head of Training and Support at Teach for Romania, we found out that she gave up  an important position within Vodafone Romania (as the one leading the project ‘Vodafone Mobile Payments’) and put all her professional experience and personal motivation into the idea of bringing Teach for All in Romania.

Alexandra: Corina, how did Teach for Romania started in Romania?

Corina: “Teach for all” is a global, but country-specific program that exists in 36 countries around the world, from the United States of America to India and Bulgaria.

In 2012, John (Ionut) Soleanicov  was back in Romania after graduating from Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School of Government and living for many years abroad.

In Bulgaria, he met by chance Ms Evgenia Peeva, the founder of Teach for Bulgaria and realized that such an initiative should exist in Romania as well. At that time, I was in charge of Vodafone Mobile Payments within Vodafone Romania. When Ionut told me about the idea of Teach for Romania, this related a lot to my childhood back in Vaslui (where I was born) and Constanța (where I spent my childhood and my school years until university) and I committed myself to a project that, at that moment, was not sure to be approved by the Romanian Ministry of Education. Since then, we have been the co-founders of Teach for Romania. A couple of years ago, Bogdan Georgescu tried to implement it, but it was refused by the Romanian authorities at that time. However, in 2013, our plan was approved by the Ministry of Education and since then, we have concentrated all our efforts in having the first generation of teachers start their activity by September 2014. I believed in this idea from the beginning and now I am very excited about the way it grows and brings its first results.

Alexandra: Can you offer us a general profile picture of the ones involved in Teach for Romania in terms of academic and professional experiences and personal motivation?

Corina: Surprisingly enough, we received 362 applications from individuals with different profiles willing to get involved in the 2-years mandate of teaching in troubled schools and environments in Romania. After interviews and group exercises, we selected 23 teachers and 18 of them already started their activity in several schools in Romania.  We were looking for highly motivated professionals, with a passion for education and willingness to challenge themselves working in primary schools in areas where teaching positions where not at all desired by other also very highly qualified teachers. The preparation sessions that took place during the Leadership Summer Academy (LSA), a couple of weeks before the start of the academic year, have been a test of endurance, patience and ability to face unusual school-related situations. LSA was conceived as the largest hub for leadership and pedagogy in Romania with 300 participants, including 200 children and around 100 trainers, facilitators and teachers. It was a first important step towards preparing our selected Teachers for Romania for their 2 years activity in schools.

The program started in September 2014 when 18 of our recruits were assigned in schools. They teach English, Romanian, Latin, Drawing and Arts, Mathematics and other subjects and try their best to meet the needs of their pupils. Therefore, they have the huge potential to bring tremendous influence on the lives of the children they work with every day for two years in a row.  And at the same time, this experience is completely transformational for them as well. They are not volunteers in the program and we support them financially through our scholarship program. Moreover, after the 2 years mandate, they become part of an alumni systemic-change network that looks quite promising already.

Alexandra: Can the idea of Teach for Romania bring innovation and change in the education system in Romania and open up new opportunities for the children involved in this project?

Corina: I would like to see the next generation of leaders of Romania coming from these children we have met while implementing Teach for Romania in rural and urban Romania.

Teach for Romania is part of the formal education system and we are committed to change and innovation. However, reality proves us that while students may be entering primary school, they are not always completing the cycle. And one of the first reasons why they abandon their studies is poverty. Thus, for the moment our hopes go to these children who are on the verge of leaving school with low credentials and qualifications and thus, with no future prospects. While we believe that a good start in life is highly dependent on education, they should also give credit to school and education in general. In low-income urban and rural areas, teachers’ efforts are going in this direction as well. According to 2012 PISA assessment, Romanian students are the less motivated ones from 65 countries involved in the research.

In these environments, motivation and willingness to fulfil studies and look for a better future are tremendously needed. Our aims for social justice and social efficiency go together with education quality. On the long term, we look forward to reducing education inequities that separate low-income students from their more privileged peers; moreover, we try to motivate teachers to bring not only knowledge, but also motivation and role-models in their classrooms. Moreover, while being a teacher in Romania is not a dream job, I hope that teaching for Romania is more than that.

In the US and other countries with a longer tradition in this program, it already exists a Teach for Alumni network that works very well there. Many of these Alumni decide to continue their teaching activities in low-income communities or go for other education-related positions. Step by step, they do not only understand the needs and problems of the system that have to be tackled at the moment, but they also look forward to bring change and innovation from their new positions. I hope that our generations of Teach for Romania professionals will form the network of leadership and advocacy that is very much needed in the education system.

Sabina Pop, 3^rd grade teacher in Gârcini,   gave us her opinion regarding her experience as a  Teacher for Romania.

The reason why I joined Teach for Romania is that one of my values includes having an impact in the world I live in. In time, I realized that the only way to do so is by starting teaching and educating young people. I believe that education is the foundation of society and if we want to change generations, we have to help youngsters build inner confidence and facilitate learning experiences where they can realize how many life options they can have if they are motivated enough.

When I found out about Teach for Romania I knew, just by “scanning” the website, that I found the people who share the same vision I have for this beautiful country we live in and for our fellow citizens. I applied for the open position and, as they saw my motivation and determination, became a Teach for Romania teacher.

It is not easy at all. Teaching in Gârcini is the toughest experience I’ve ever been through. The reality struck me, even though we were prepared for it in the Leadership Summer Academy that took place just kilometers away, in Tarlungeni. The pupils I’m teaching are in the 3^rd grade and 90% of them still have to learn the letters. Half of them are too old to be in the 3^rd grade. They cannot do basic math problems, nor read or write. Their families are not supportive at all and they are all dependent on social supplements and monthly allowances.

Nevertheless, I am here (in Gârcini) because I do believe in them. I believe in the power of example and, most of all, in the power of a ‘healthy’ education – one in which the student is always encouraged to trust himself or herself, develop critical thinking skills, be curious about the world and motivated to learn more. I don’t have a lot of teaching experience myself, but I am learning a lot every day. I am trying to educate them, so they become motivated to be someone when they grow up – a person who has a well-paid job, who is satisfied with his/her famils life and who is always willing to give support to the people in the community where he or she lives in. This is my vision for my pupils and I put all the efforts to help them achieve their best.

My greatest achievement so far is the one related to the management of violence in my classroom. Children who exhibit violent or aggressive behavior at school are a great challenge for the school personnel. I used to have at least five or siex very violent students in my class who would always hit and spit each other. Since I never hit them, always encouraged them to reflect on their behavior and used the power of example, after only two months, I don’t have this problem anymore. I have to be honest and say that I am still surprised, but very happy we have come so far in such a short period of time. The same situation has occured during the Leadership Summer Academy; at that time, we had to deal with some noncompliant and violent behaviors exhibited by some pupils we worked with in Tarlungeni. We are still in touch with these kids and it is wonderful to see that they improved their behavior after we left their school.

In a nutshell, my  greatest objectives for this school year (2014/2015) concern improving my pupils’ reading and writing abilities. These are ambitious goals since we have to learn in one year what other students used to achieve in three years; however, I am confident that all the teaching methods and strategies I have learned during the Leadership Summer Academy together with my strong motivation to succeed in our project, will help us check out our accomplishments quite soon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(by Alexandra Sabou)

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

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

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

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

What has been done so far? 

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

Sustainable Development Goals: What now?

(by Adela Militaru)

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

SDGs and a world of development

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

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

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

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

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

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

The value(s) of SDGs

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

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

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

References

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo credits:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more: Issues of Global Justice_Diana VELICA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Photo credits: .UNAMID / Albert Gonzales Farran