Articles
Basic human rights in post-2015 SDGs?
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Virtually every major international conference concludes with a “programme of action” (PoA) – described in U.N. jargon as “an outcome document” – preceded by a political declaration where 193 member states religiously pledge to honour their commitments.
But over 620 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), a hefty coalition of mostly international water activists, are complaining that a proposed political declaration for the U.N.’s post-2015 development agenda is set to marginalise water and sanitation.
The IMF, indispensable?
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Obituaries have been written for the World Bank following the arrival of China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the implied question being whether the US remains willing and able to lead the global economic governance system. Yet the other Washington-based Bretton Woods institution, the International Monetary Fund, reveals a different story. It appears to be on the verge of a third epoch in which it is set to become indispensable, ushering in the global economic reforms now considered necessary in the ‘new mediocre’.
South-South Cooperation vital for sustainable development
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Sustainable development is central to a range of key discussions at the United Nations and elsewhere at the moment.
The role of South-South cooperation in the context of sustainable development deserves greater recognition as significant numbers of developing countries begin to ascend the development ladder in a sustainable manner, causing fundamental changes to the development infrastructure the world has known up to now.
The steady expansion of South-South cooperation is causing a lasting impression on the existing order of things.
First, the best practices adopted by the more economically advanced developing countries could provide workable and relevant models for the others.
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Social policies have given women a boost
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Although they do not specifically target women, social policies like family allowances and pensions have improved the lives of women in Latin America, the region that has made the biggest strides so far this century in terms of gender equality, although there is still a long way to go.
Luiza Carvalho of Brazil, U.N. Women’s regional director for the Americas and the Caribbean, said that can be seen in each report by her agency.
“It’s interesting to note that of all of the world’s regions, Latin America has in fact shown the greatest progress,” Carvalho said in an interview with IPS during the global conference “Women and Social Inclusion: From Beijing to Post-2015”, held in the Argentine capital from Wednesday May 6 to Friday May 8.
Does the Rise of the Middle Class Lock in Good Government?
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In his introductory essay in the European Journal of Development research, Juergen Wiemann concludes that the rise of the middle class in the developing world is a cause for optimism. Whether it is seems to me to depend on two factors in each developing country: the proportion of the population that meets a reasonable standard of being not only above some poverty line but sufficiently above that line to constitute a reasonably income-secure “middle class”; and the extent to which the middle class gets richer and bigger as a result of sufficient and sufficiently shared economic growth over the next 15 to 25 years. In other words, the middle class has to be big enough, and it has to continue (as it has in the last 15 years or so) to get richer and bigger still to warrant “optimism” about its role.
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