THINK AGAIN: The three conferences that could change the world - but probably won't
A conference that starts in Addis Ababa today will ask who should foot the bill for development, and how this should happen.
While the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were not a runaway success, they did at least provide a framework for international development. They defined development priorities, and set targets that – even if they weren’t always achieved – at least encouraged efforts to meet them. The United Nations (UN) also estimates that in the process, a billion people were lifted out of poverty. But the MDGs have expired. Their 15-year mandate has run its course, and the world now needs a new set of rules and priorities to govern international development.
There has already been plenty of progress, but the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – so named to recognise the increasing impact of environmental concerns on development – have yet to be finalised and agreed on.
This should change in the next six months, when three international conferences will thrash out the specifics and technicalities of the agreement. The first of these is the Third International Conference on Financing for Development, to be held in Addis Ababa this week from 13 – 16 July. Development is an expensive business, and this conference – the pinnacle of years of discussion – is meant to determine who’s going to pay for it, and how.
Some 30 heads of state and 110 ministers have confirmed their attendance |
Among other things, the conference will try to determine the extent of wealthier countries' responsibility to financially assist poorer countries; establish mechanisms to help developing countries improve their own revenue stream, primarily through a fairer and more effective global tax regime; and assess the role of international development finance institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Some 30 heads of state and 110 ministers have already confirmed their attendance. More are likely to follow.
The second event is the UN Summit to adopt the post-2015 development agenda in late September, where the SDGs will be passed by member states – provided they can agree, of course. The early signs aren’t promising. The first draft of the SDGs – the text from which negotiations begin – was released in June. While far more ambitious than the MDGs, the draft has been criticised for being bafflingly comprehensive.
'Whereas the MDGs consisted of eight goals supported by 21 specific targets and 60 indicators, there are currently 17 SDGs comprising 169 targets. The number of indicators has yet to be set, but there are likely to be hundreds,' explained The Guardian’s Sam Jones. The goals range from ending poverty in all its forms, everywhere, to achieving gender equality, to ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns. It’s also important to remember that the funding mechanisms agreed in Addis will have a direct bearing on the kind of deals that can be struck in New York, and on the chances of the SDGs actually being implemented.
 The results are not likely to be as ground-breaking as hoped |
Finally, many of the same faces will meet again in December in Paris for the latest round of the UN’s climate change talks (COP21). Here, delegates will discuss how to reduce carbon emissions and tackle the fallout from climate change.
As usual, the talks will be prickly: developing countries object to caps on emissions, arguing that they didn’t cause the problem; while richer countries are reluctant to adopt drastic measures that could damage their economies.
'The Third International Conference on Financing for Development next week will be the first of three major global events this year, followed by the September summit in New York for the adoption of a new set of sustainable development goals and a conference in Paris in December to reach a universal climate change agreement. These events … will shape international cooperation for years to come,' said Wu Hongbo, the UN Under Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, who is chairing the Addis Ababa conference. While initially optimistic, civil society groups are already warning that the results are not likely to be as ground-breaking as hoped – or, indeed, as is considered necessary to kickstart development and alleviate the worst effects of climate change.
'A number of commitments can be made especially around resourcing and mechanisms that generate money for development and climate adaptation and mitigation. [The three conferences should establish] new rules of the game on how finance and investment in development and climate happens,' said Claire Godfrey, a senior policy advisor on development finance for Oxfam International. 'Potentially the three conferences could be transformative. And that was our high hope for them, and still is. But it’s looking slightly bleak going into Addis at the moment.'
Godfrey’s pessimism stems from the failure of the pre-conference talks to reach any kind of consensus. Negotiators representing the interested parties were supposed to come up with the bones of an agreement that the Addis conference could effectively rubber stamp. In the absence of this, the conference is unlikely to adopt any strong, trail-blazing measures.
| Can the Addis conference pull a rabbit out of the hat? |
There were several sticking points preventing consensus. The biggest was the proposed creation of an intergovernmental tax body, which is strongly supported by the G77 group of developing countries. They argue that the global financial system requires global tax oversight, and that this role should be performed by a representative, transparent body that sits within the UN. Richer countries have strongly resisted this, however, preferring to maintain the status quo. This role is de facto played by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) – where only 34 countries are represented.
Another was on the subject of common but differentiated responsibility. While acknowledging that all countries have an obligation to contribute to issues like development and climate change, some argue that wealthier countries should contribute more: both because they are able to, and because their responsibility is greater. (Heavily industrialised countries produce the most carbon emissions and must pay more, and colonial history also plays a role.) While not necessarily denying this logic, richer countries have been arguing that the principle only applies in the climate change talks, and not to the decisions of the Addis conference.
Finally, there has been some debate over the true purpose of the Addis conference. Is this just the financing arm of the Sustainable Development Goals? Or is it an appropriate forum to lay down development commitments and obligations of its own? The failure to resolve this debate makes it nearly impossible to agree on outcomes.
'At the moment, it's a stalemate,' said Godfrey, although she’s not giving up hope just yet. 'One of the things is the lack of high-level political interest and engagement in this to make something transformative. Governments really have to up their involvement. You never know, sometimes at the last minute something surprising comes out.’
Can the Addis conference pull a rabbit out of the hat? For it to have any hope of making a difference – and for the sake of the two conferences that follow – it will have to.
Simon Allison, ISS Consultant
