Articles
2030 Agenda and SDG Indicators
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On 11 March 2016 the UN Statistical Commission agreed “as a practical starting point” with the proposed global indicator framework by which to measure progress towards the 17 goals and 169 targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It recognized that the development of a robust and high quality indicator framework is a process that will need to continue over time and authorized the Interagency and Expert Group for Sustainable Development Goals (IAEG-SDGs) to continue its work, including:
◾to take into account the specific proposals for refinements of the global indicators made by Member States;
◾to report on progress made on developing and improving the global indicators, and provide its proposals and a plan for regular reviews of the indicator framework, including mechanisms for approval;
◾to report on plans to develop methodologies for those indicators for which definitions and standards have yet to be developed.
Extractive industries: more reporting, but more is needed
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For over a decade now, various global initiatives have promoted the design and implementation of international standards for governments and companies in the extractive sector to publish detailed information about their output and revenues. In 2002, after major corruption scandals emerged in Angola, Publish What You Pay (PWYP; a global coalition of civil society organizations) demanded oil, gas and mining companies to publish what they paid governments.
From this global call for action, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)—a voluntary reporting regime—was launched in 2002 by then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Read more: Extractive industries: more reporting, but more is needed
UN report on Greece's debt
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I would like to share with you the official report on my mission to Greece which I presented at the United Nations Human Rights Council last week. My report finds that after several years of adjustment policies, more than one million persons in Greece have fallen below income levels indicating extreme poverty. Unemployment, in particular youth unemployment has remained at unacceptable high levels. Unfortunately human rights obligations of Greece and its international lenders towards rights holders within the country continue to be sidelined, both in the design of adjustment policies and in the implementation of much needed structural reforms.
Argentina's debt deal
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Argentina signed an agreement in principle on 29 February 2016 with four “super holdout” hedge funds including NML Capital Ltd, Aurelius Capital, Davidson Kempner and Bracebridge Capital. Buenos Aires would pay them a total of about $4.65 billion, amounting to 75 percent of the principal and interest of all their claims of Argentina’s bonds that were defaulted on during the 2001 debt crisis. The payment is to be made in cash before 14 April 2016, provided that Argentina's Congress approves the repeal of Argentina's domestic laws, namely the Lock Law and the Sovereign Payment Law, which prohibit the country from proposing terms to the holdouts that are better than those Argentina offered to its creditors in earlier restructurings. This deal would allow the return of Argentina to the international capital market after more than 15 years of exclusion, something that is imperative for the government to try to put the economy on a more sustainable path even though this would mean having to use a substantial part of its foreign currency reserves to pay off the holdout bond holders. Nevertheless, there are systemic implications of this deal to future sovereign debt restructurings which deserve careful examination and remedial actions.
