On the eve of the (virtual) United Nations 75th anniversary event and the Global Goals Week authors presented this year's global civil society report Spotlight on Sustainable Development.
If you missed the virtual launching event you can watch the recording here.
Find the report & further information here.
New York, 18 September
The COVID-19 crisis and the worldwide measures to tackle it have deeply affected communities, societies and economies around the globe. The implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been put at high risk in many countries. COVID-19 is a global wake-up call for enhanced international cooperation and solidarity.
But calls for “building back better” by just pushing the reset button will not change the game. We need structural changes [...]
New York, 8 July 2019: “The world is off-track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Most governments have failed to turn the transformational vision of the 2030 Agenda into real transformational policies. Even worse, xenophobia and authoritarianism are on the rise in a growing number of countries.”
“The implementation of the 2030 Agenda is not just a matter of better policies. It requires more holistic and more sweeping shifts in how power is vested, including through institutional and governance [...]
By Kate Donald, CESR and Grazielle David, University of Campinas and Mahinour El-Badrawi, CESR
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) plays a central role in economic governance, both at the global and national levels. Although it presents itself as neutral economic arbiter, its approach is in fact deeply rooted in certain economic orthodoxies, many of which have proven incompatible with the achievement of sustainable development and the meaningful reduction of inequalities, particularly in the Global South. Drawing on the examples of [...]
By Kate Donald, Center for Economic and Social Rights [fn] Parts of this text are based on Center for Economic and Social Rights/Third World Network (2015). [/fn]
The issue of inequalities between countries is often conceptualized and measured in terms of GDP. Moreover, the way to reduce these is often implicitly assumed to be convergence upwards through rapid growth. However, although economic growth may be important for many countries (especially LDCs), global convergence with the GDP of the richest countries [...]
By Kate Donald, Center for Economic and Social Rights, and Jens Martens, Global Policy Forum
The 2030 Agenda cites the “enormous disparities of opportunity, wealth and power” as one of the “immense challenges” to sustainable development. [fn] UN (2015b), para. 14. [/fn] It recognizes that “sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth…will only be possible if wealth is shared and income inequality is addressed”. [fn] Ibid., para. 27. [/fn]
A major part of the inequality picture is increasing market concentration and [...]
By Arthur Muliro Wapakala, Deputy Managing Director, Society for International Development
The past few years have seen the economies of the East African Community (EAC) Member States grow by leaps and bounds, with the region averaging some 6 percent annual GDP growth since 2011. These growth rates have been heralded as the proof that the region has finally made a structural shift in its economies, and this is now held out as a harbinger of greater things to come. Furthermore [...]
By Kate Donald, Center for Economic and Social Rights
Reducing inequality is one of the central pledges of the SDGs, appearing as a stand-alone goal (SDG 10) and as a cross-cutting commitment to “leave no one behind”. Reducing inequality requires resources; both (re)distributing currently available resources more fairly, and raising more resources to invest in goods and services which tackle inequality. Taxation is an essential tool for governments to achieve both of these objectives; hence the inclusion of fiscal policy [...]
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