“It is essential that a new post 2015 development framework belongs to all people and not just politicians”.
This was the concluding point of Richard Morgan’s lecture on the post 2015 development agenda that he gave at IDS as part of the Sussex Development Lecture series.
Richard is a senior adviser on the post 2015 agenda at Unicef and has been closely involved with the post Millennium Development Goals (MDG) process being led by the UN. The day before his lecture at IDS, Richard had been presenting a new report from the Unicef and UN Women led thematic consultation on inequalities to ministers of finance at a meeting in Copenhagen.
In his lecture, Richard gave a valuable insight into the various processes that are taking place in the run up to the MDG Summit at the UN General Assembly in September of this year. These include the High Level Panel meetings and reports, the open working group on Sustainable Development Goals comprised of UN government member states and the series of thematic consultations led by the UN.
Richard outlined five key challenges that the UN General Assembly would need to address following the summit in Setpember:
- Should the goals by universal?
- How do you define sustainable development?
- What are the roles of targets, goals and indicators?
- Does governance have a place in a new framework and how it can be monitored?
- How can a new framework ensure that all citizens are able to hold their governments accountable to a new set of goals?
He also outlined four key principals that needed to underpin a new framework that would ensure a focus on equality and rights:
- All people are born equal in rights and have rights equally. Equality is principal as well as a practical issue for development.
- People should not be discriminated against on the basis of gender, class, race and sexuality in terms of their access to services, decent livelihoods, equal pay etc.
- All people should be able to hold their decision makers to account at a political level
- Participation is key to a new framework which needs to belong to all people and not just politicians.
Watch the full presentation again – please note that the video can be skipped to 4.45 minutes when the lecture actually begins.
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