Dr. Ranjana Kumari

Dr. Ranjana Kumari, Director, Center for Social Research | India

Dr. Ranjana Kumari is the Director of Centre for Social Research as well as Chairperson of Women Power Connect. Dr. Kumari has dedicated her life to empowering women across the South Asia region, and is also a prolific writer of many well‐known publications. She has served as the Coordinator of the South Asia Network Against Trafficking (SANAT) in Persons and is a member of the Central Advisory Board on “Pre Conception and Pre Natal Diagnostic Tests Act, 2001”, as well as the Central Advisory Committee for Prevention of Trafficking in Women and Children. Dr. Ranjana Kumari combines the two roles of a women activist and scholar with great felicity and panache. Having dedicated her life to significant social causes, Dr. Ranjana Kumari continues to impact the lives of many with her dedication and zeal. She has her MA, M.Phil and Ph.D in Political Science from JawaharLal Nehru University.

 

Video Link:

Event Title: SDGs Conference 2023 Date: Sept 20, 2023
 

SPEECH

Sounding an alarm for urgent action on increasing internationally comparable, gender-disaggregated, available data collection

20 September 2023 marks a very critical day for Indian women. I would like this achievement to your attention because it is earned after a fight and struggle. Women’s lives are full of struggle, but this one was for getting women political power. Unless women hold 50% of decision-making positions at various levels, I do not think we would be in these circumstances.

Today, while I am participating at the SDGs Conference, at the Parliament of India, a bill that has been fought for the last 27 years has been passed following Prime Minister Modi’s proposal and 554 Members of the House have accepted it. As a result, we have 33% of seats reserved in India’s parliament for women, which is going to make an impactful difference. This is a point where I would like to bring in the importance of gender-desegregated data and its impact. However, the sad news is that we have not been able to achieve even one-fifth of what we set out to achieve seven years back.

The pandemic was a big disruption for the setback in the implementation of the SDGs, but  I do not think we can blame everything that went wrong because of the pandemic. At its halfway point, the SDGs are failing because most of the countries did not muster the political will and put their resources in the place that they should have put to achieving the Global Goals. We must look at what happens when we do have the correct, accurate, scientifically generated information and data. It is not only that 70% of the countries do not know what the status of women’s gainful employment is but also, 40% of countries are not aware of land rights or land ownership of women.

I can continue commenting on how many countries reported when SDGs data was collated together. How many areas of progress have been too slow at the current rate? What will happen to women if the data comes to us? If we analyze that data, then we are looking at an estimated 300 years to end child marriage. It will take 286 years to close the gap in legal protection and remove discriminatory laws. However, this is achievable. Every country can set up a committee, or an expert board to review the laws from the gender lens and a gender perspective.

There are various laws that we inherited as we have spent 200 years as a British Colony. We continued to implement those for the past 75 years since independence. We need amendments for women to be represented equally in positions of power and leadership. India has made some steps towards achieving this; however, it took 47 years to attain equal representation in parliament. What is missing here is the political will of the nations to make progress and to get women equal opportunities. When we have the data we can tailor the strategies and be able to change that situation if we have that information available. 

In India, We had to build a whole data set from independence till now addressing the question of where women are in terms of power and decision-making. When we presented the data that we started on the eve of independence, 75 years back, only 3% were women in comparison to today`s participation rate of 14%. Where are we in terms of women getting represented, how do you call it a democracy if women are not even sitting equally to make all types of decisions? Are women only there to vote and to bring others to power? Is the role of women household work only or is it more than that? If it is more than that, then look at this data and notice what is going wrong. 

In post-pandemic so many girls have dropped out of school, especially from the lower income group communities. They started working with their mothers. So many girl children are never sent back to school because they are pushed into earning that income as it is needed for the survival of the family. They did not have enough resources to survive. In so many countries across the globe, the girl children are still in that position. On top of this situation, there is a concern for those children in terms of physical safety and sexual security. Eventually, the majority have been pushed into child marriage and thus the data is escalating about child marriage. The dropout rate has gone up, now we need to know the exact percent. 

When we started working in gender-critical districts in our country at the Center for Social Research, nobody agreed with us and denied the fact that girls have dropped out. When we looked at school rosters we asked where the girls were. Almost 20% of girls have never gone back to school and it is a very high number for a country that has decided to give the right to education as a constitutional guarantee. When you have the data, you have informed policies. On the other side, you have informed advocacy and it is extremely important for all of us who are working on different kinds of human rights themes. 

Accurate data collection is required because we have to all go back after reviewing the current concerning status of the SDGs that we have not been able to achieve more than 15%, to start working. So, we in fact need more gender-disaggregated data. Data has immense power. If the community is aware of what is happening, then there is not only sensitization and advocacy that happens, but also policymakers are enabled to design accurate policies. They are able to design correct interventions and, of course, impact assessment is extremely important. 

There is one UN initiative that oversees gender budgeting in all of our countries. India adopted this and when we do gender budgeting, then every penny spent will have to be seen from the perspective of who it is benefiting. What is the problem standing in front of us as are we not able to collect gender-disaggregated data? The first important issue is that we do not have the kind of understanding, index, or scale on which we are able to collect that data. So, many of our data collection machinery is not equipped with this working methodology. 

When we started talking about women-headed households, everybody in the government questioned the meaning of women-headed households. Our data does not show any women head households. It is only men as they are the farmers. Women are not the farmers and surprisingly 70% of agriculture is handled by women only. Whether men are working or are out of their homes and working in different cities because of migration and migrant labor, women are left behind with children to make all the decisions, from agriculture to health and education. It took years for us to convince our census data collection which happens once in 10 years and because of COVID disruption, we have not been able to do that. The data that we were supposed to compose in 2021 was accepted to be collected in an area where our numerators go and ask who is the head of the house. However, in India, women are used to saying that either their husband or any elder male member is the head of the household. They tell us that their spouse is not there, he is in Bombay or Kanpur, wherever in the country but he is the head of the household. Women do not even think if they are the main providers or they do not consider themselves as the head of the household. 

I think if women-headed households were included in our census as one of the categories for data enumeration it would be driven by the cultural social understanding of how we collect our data. Now, the other fact that is very important is resources to get extensive data collection. We are making a lot of conjectures and observational calculations. I feel that it is important to understand the kind of data collection and so many aspects of it where we need to invest in improving the data infrastructure.

My call to action is to invest in a well-functioning data infrastructure because, without that, it is only a blind game. That is why only 15% in seven years are still not even one-fifth the way. Standardization is important because data needs to be comparable. A lot of data was sent when we were collating reports in the country. They are not comparable. There must be the same standards when you are looking at the data and it has to be global, so we can get a universal picture of what is happening. Most of the low-income countries are suffering because of these issues and there is not much progress because of resource crunch, debt crisis, war, and economies have gone down after the pandemic. Additionally, we have to take responsibility for capacity building, data collection, and numerators. There is no way that we can get the right data unless they understand how to obtain it. There is a lot of good research that has been generated but there is a majority of people who are ignorant about those facts and those kinds of studies and research. 

To conclude, the urgency of increasing internationally comparable gender-disaggregated data collection cannot be overstated. It is a call to action that demands the attention of governments, organizations, and academics worldwide. By working together to close the data gap, we can take meaningful steps towards a more equitable and just world. It is time to sound the alarm and take action. Now with the availability of artificial intelligence and the technology that we have in hand, there should not be any excuse. The gender-disaggregated data will tell you that we are sitting on climate negotiations and women are missing, one or two in the corner of the table. Men create war and women suffer but we don’t have any way to play a role in stopping that war we want to. 

Patricia Garcia AO

Patricia Garcia AO, Partnership Development Manager, Institute for Economics and Peace | Australia

Patricia Garcia is the Partnership Development Manager of the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP). Patricia has worked for more than 20 years in some of the world’s most dangerous conflicts including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan and the Thai-Burma border. She has been appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2016 and was a finalist in the 2016 NSW Australian of the Year awards for her contribution and services to the international humanitarian aid and development sector over the past two decades. Patricia Garcia was a Human Rights Research Fellow at the University of Sydney’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies from 2000–2002 and designed the Human Rights course for the Master of Peace and Conflict Studies at CPACS. Ms. Garcia is also an Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney where she is a sessional lecturer on peace and human rights with a passion to promote and advance the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals Agenda.

 

Video Link:

Event Title: SDGs Conference 2023 Date: Sept 20, 2023
 

SPEECH

Contemporary challenges of development in the transitioning era of geopolitical complexities and conflicts

On the occasion of the International Day of Peace, I would like to call on all of the stakeholders to take action and be part of the solution to this SDGs agenda, commit to both personal and collective action that can contribute to advancing the SDGs 2030 agenda. For those who have been following the SDGs agenda, it was in 2015, seven years ago that all 193 countries formally adopted it. These are the 17 SDGs with 169 targets to transform our world for a better future. Our previous speakers have said that the SDGs have presented us with a roadmap of the 17 goals, with the signposts being these 169 targets. We have been passionate advocates of the Sustainable Development Goals and still, we have seen that over these last seven years, we have not performed well. In contrast, several countries have in many ways deteriorated the condition. So, there is a sense of urgency for us with time running out with only now at the midpoint of seven years that we have to accelerate our efforts. 

I think it is really important now that we look at how we can be able to find innovative ways and ways to collaborate to be able to address the enormous global challenges that we are facing today; whether it is the climate crisis, economic inequality, the growing societal polarization, geopolitical tensions or conflicts that we are all facing. We need to look at the SDGs as not only a roadmap but also a vision of hope for a world where we can build a peaceful, equal, and sustainable future for all. 

The SDGs for me represent the five Ps: people, at first and then the planet, peace, prosperity, and partnership. With these five, it is very important to understand that these are universal goals. They belong to all of us and because of that, it is a shared responsibility that we must take to be able to advance these goals and to be able to achieve all 17 goals. The nature of these goals when they were first developed was based on consultations all around the world. I think the importance of these goals is that they provide a common language for all of us to be able to address these global challenges in a way that we have, a common language to express how we can find solutions, how we can take action, and how we can collaborate. 

My role at the Institute for Economics and Peace is as a Partnership Development Manager. So, the word partnership is central to my work and while working with the Institute for Economics and Peace, I have been so privileged to be able to meet with many of the people we have here yesterday and at the beginning of our SDG Summit to hear all the wonderful work that many of us are doing to be able to advance the SDGs, particularly, Goal 16, the goal of peacebuilding, peaceful and inclusive societies with access to justice for all and also strong, transparent and accountable institutions at all levels. This is such an important goal because it is the goal that is cross-cutting across all 17. Many of you might know that the whole approach of the SDGs has been based on what we call “systems thinking”, where we try to shift people’s thinking from not looking at a singular cause-effect relationship of how we deal with issues but looking at issues as being a system. 

With the system, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and this system’s thinking is what also informs, the Institute for Economics and Peace in the way in which we measure and analyze peace and the economic cost of violence. I would like to start with just some explanation of the SDGs, many of you might also understand that there have been some constraints in being able to advance these SDGs and one of them has been the lack of financing. We heard earlier a speaker about the importance of having innovative financing mechanisms, whether it is increasing our overseas development assistance or looking at building public-private partnerships but we need to look at different ME financing mechanisms to support the SDGs and EEGs. The other area is often the lack of measurement. How can we measure progress on how we are going with the 17 goals? 

This is where the Institute for Economics and Peace is an independent global think tank that measures and analyzes peace and the economic cost of violence and provides metrics to measure peacefulness in 163 countries. We hope through our measurements of peace and analysis of peace, we can also provide a better understanding of the social, economic, cultural, and political factors that drive peace. So, just a little bit of an example of showing you how one of the examples of the tools that IEP has been able to develop is called the ‘Positive Peace Framework.’ 

As I mentioned earlier, the Institute for Economics and Peace was established in 2008 and we pioneered the empirical study of peace. In other words, with the organization, we were able to measure and analyze peace and the aim of the organization is to undertake research to show how peace is a positive, tangible, and achievable measure of human well-being and progress. So, think of this concept of peace as something positive, tangible, and achievable, and also a measure of human well-being and development. The ‘Global Peace Index’ was our first report and many of you might know this is the report that measures and analyzes the absence of violence or the fear of violence in 163 countries. The Index represents 99.7% of the world’s population. So, I would like to just show you how we rank the 163 countries. 

We use three domains, these domains are International and Domestic Conflict, Safety and Society, and Militarization. For those of you who want to look at understanding conflict and particularly the drivers of conflict and particularly want to know the changing nature of where we see the world going in, how we understand conflict, the Global Peace Index provides the evidence and data to show the trends of where countries are going in the issues of conflict. 

In the 2023 GPI, we saw that 70 to 84 countries had improved and 79 had deteriorated. The key highlights of this 2023 Global Peace Index showed that Iceland remains at the moment and has been for many years, the most peaceful country in the world. We have Libya and Burundi with the largest improvements, Middle East and North Africa have improved in the last three years. Also, Europe has remained the most peaceful region and recorded only a slight improvement since last year. Afghanistan remains the world’s least peaceful nation and has also recorded just in this last year. Since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, there has been some improvement only in this last year but it remains the least peaceful country in the world. You might be surprised to know that the Taliban has criticized IEP because of that ranking. This year, we got strong criticism from the Taliban government. This is the 10 most peaceful countries. 

Then, we have the 10 least peaceful countries. We have seen a decline in peacefulness over the last 13 or 15 years since IEP has been established and not very sobering news to be able to say that this deterioration has continued consecutively over the last 13 years. Unfortunately, the scenario is not looking good. Also for the future, there are 23 indicators that we use to measure – the militarization, social security and safety, and the international and domestic conflict domains of each country. 

Last year, the total number of battle deaths, as there has been an increase in conflict deaths and battle deaths since last year, primarily in Europe, Ethiopia, and Ukraine. When we people are looking at conflict and we are looking at war, we are not only looking at the actual conflict of fighting, battles, military, and security. People have to look at conflict and war as also being what we call military-industrial conflicts. It is the whole business of war. 

IEP also measures the economic cost of the violence that the world spends each year and this figure, 17.5 trillion was the cost of violence for the last year. It is a huge figure. Many of you would be not surprised to know that most of this cost is coming from military expenditure and where does the military expenditure come from? It mostly comes from governments. So, who do we need to approach when we’re talking about financing? We need to be looking at why governments are spending so much money on military expenditure that is contributing to more violence in our society. That figure of 2,200 per person is the equivalent of 17.5 trillion and I just wanted to mention that 2,200 per person is what that cost of violence is equivalent to 2,200 per person spent on violence. 

Many of you might know that that is even more than the per capita income of people in developing countries. This is quite an important figure to be able to remember and what we could do if we just took 10% of that 17, 1% of that 17.5 trillion. If we could use that money instead of spending it on violence, think of what we could do to make the world a better place, and what we could do with spending that money on doing good things. So, positive peace is what IEP has been measuring on what we call the actual peace of the state of the world today. IEP calls that negative peace because it is looking at the broken bits in a society, the dysfunctional aspects, conflict, violence, and fear of violence are what we call the dysfunctional aspects of society. However, we found that it is not enough to understand peace if you only look at the broken bits of a society. 

In other words, it is like looking at the human body. Yes, medical science and doctors have been able to discover wonderful ways to deal with our illnesses and diseases but as you know, to look at health, to make a healthy body, you also have to look at what makes a body healthy. We also know that good exercise and a regular diet make our body healthy. This is what we call now a positive piece. We not only look at what is broken, we also have to look at what are the positive elements and IEP is researching what comes up to be the most common characteristics in peaceful countries and what makes peaceful countries peaceful. We came up with what we call the set of eight interrelated factors or pillars of positive peace. 

The Global Peace Index measures the absence of violence or the fear of violence but now we also need to look at what we call positive peace. Positive peace is defined as the attitudes, institutions, and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies. We should look at it as two sides of a coin. You need two sides to the coin and we need negative and positive peace to be able to address peace and to be able to contribute to building peace. These eight pillars, as you can see here, are well-functioning, government, equitable distribution of resources, free flow of information, good relations with neighbors, high level of human capital, acceptance of the rights of others, low level of corruption, and sound business environment. 

These eight are all interrelated, they do not work individually because they are all interrelated. Working together and putting the information together for these eight pillars contributes to creating a peaceful society and a peaceful community. We have been able to provide that evidence and data which is so important in being able to advance the sustainable development goals so that you can show how you can contribute to the sustainable development goals by using this positive peace framework, what we call a monitoring tool or an advocacy tool. 

What are the benefits? Why would we have this and why is it important to have a positive peace framework? Well, we found that through our research, the benefits of being able to use and contribute to positive peace lead to higher per capita income, stronger resilience within the communities, better environmental outcomes, higher measures of well-being, and better performance on the sustainable development goals. So, this positive framework can actually be a practical tool for you to use in your monitoring and advocacy for the Sustainable Development Goals. This is some of the information that you can find in our report, which I brought, just to show you, this is the Global Peace Index and this is the Positive Peace Report from which I have taken the information. 

The majority of the eight pillars are correlated to the 12 targets of SDG 16. They are very strongly aligned with the positive peace framework and the pillars. What we have been able to show is that you could also use the positive peace framework as a critique of the 17 goals to show whether the goals are performing or not performing. One of the things that we have been able to show is that the issue of corruption which you would think is a serious issue is only mentioned as one of the targets out of the 169 targets in the Sustainable Development Goal. For us, this is quite surprising when you know the seriousness of corruption and the importance of how corruption can drive conflict and all sorts of tensions and also contribute to the crisis and global crisis that we are facing today. 

Yet, it is only one target out of the 169 and it is in Goal 1, so this is why IEP is focusing also on the low levels of corruption as one of its key pillars. The data that you can use from our reports could contribute to how you could address this issue of corruption which is an underlying goal and target as part of the SDGs agenda. Another example is the increasing lack of media freedoms around the world, which we already discussed in detail yesterday and this is an important area. The lack of media freedoms is a concerning issue and it is one of the issues that are part of SDG 16. This is why at EIP, we measure the issues of the free flow of information and how we need to have a society where there is a free flow of information. 

The lack of media freedom that we have been facing presents a challenge for us to see how we can address that issue. Using the positive piece framework, we can provide evidence and data to support how we can address this issue of lack of media freedom. Many of you might know, that with digitalization, the rise of what we call now misinformation and disinformation. It is presenting a huge challenge for the world now in being able to have access to freedom of information. These are some of the organizations that IEP partners with to be able to work on how we can contribute to building peace in the communities. 

Goal 17, Global Partnerships, is the glue that links all the goals. This is why Goal 17 which I just like to stress for many of us, is the actual goal that we must all be able to contribute to because it is the glue that connects all of the goals. When we are talking about partnerships, we are talking about building collaborations and connecting with the count. There is a shared responsibility for us to be able to develop partnerships, collaborations, and particularly international solidarity on so many of the issues that we are dealing with from climate, and economic inequality, to the displacement of refugees, mass migration, or governance affairs including corruption. 

We need to work in partnership as diverse thinking leads to better solutions. We need to work together in a way that we can show leadership, we can work with advocacy and influence and also we connect with communities, people, and organizations to build cultures of learning. A crucial aspect of the SDGs, especially in the context of the International Day of Peace, is the strong link between advocating for sustainable development goals and the fundamental principles of human rights. 

The Sustainable Development Goals are really rooted in human rights principles, with the “leave no one behind” principle being particularly important. Therefore, I would like to end with a poem that is based on the principle of ‘leave no one behind’, this was written by an Aboriginal woman who is a writer and poet, Oodgeroo Noonuccal and she is from my country. 

“All One Race”

Black tribe, yellow tribe, red, white or brown,

From where the sun jumps up to where it goes down,

Herrs and pukka-sahibs, demoiselles and squaws,

All one family, so why make wars?

They’re not interested in brumby runs,

We don’t hanker after Midnight Suns;

I’m for all humankind, not colour gibes;

I’m international and never mind tribes.

Black, white or brown race, yellow race or red,

From the torrid equator to the ice-fields spread,

Monsieurs and senors, lubras and fraus,

All one family, so why family rows?

We’re not interested in their igloos,

They’re not mad about kangaroos;

I’m international, never mind place;

I’m for humanity, all one race.

George Abualzulof

George Abualzulof, Senior Human Rights Adviser, United Nations Development Coordination Office (DCO) | USA

George Abualzulof is a Human Rights defender with around 30 years of field focused experience in a variety of Human Rights areas including within conflict, developmental, and post conflict situations. Before joining UN DCO as its Chief of Universal Values Section, Mr. Abualzulof served as the Senior Human Rights Advisor to the United Nation Resident Coordinator Office and the United Nations Country Team in Jamaica MCO since 2018, and the representative of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Yemen from 2013-2016. In 2016 he was appointed as the director of the Qatar based UN Human Rights Training and Documentation Center for South West Asia and the Arab Region. Mr. Abualzulof worked with UNICEF MENA for 5 years as a justice for children specialists and as the General Director of Defence for Children International / Palestine Section for 10 years. He holds a Master’s degree in Children’s Rights from University of Freiburg and Institute of Children’s Rights in Sion, Switzerland and a BA degree in Social Work and Psychology from Bethlehem, Palestine.

 

Video Link:

Event Title: SDGs Conference 2023 Date: Sept 20, 2023
 

SPEECH

The latest progress of the Sustainable Development Goals halfway through the 2030 deadline

Distinguished guests and dear colleagues;

On behalf of the United Nations Development Coordination Office, I would like to thank Journalists and Writers Foundation (JWF) for the kind invitation and for organizing this very important SDGs Conference 2023: In the Margins of the UNGA78. I would also like to welcome JWF’s Global Partners and delegations (including journalists, human rights defenders, civil society members, and academics from 15 different countries. 

In 2015, the world leaders made an historic global promise to secure the human rights and well-being of everyone on a healthy, prosperous planet when they agreed to the 2030 Agenda. This promise is now halfway to the 2030 deadline, in deep danger. Instead of progressing towards the 2030 goals, development progress is reversing under the combined impacts of climate disasters, conflict, economic downturn, and remaining COVID-19 effects. 

Tens of millions have fallen into poverty. Over 110 million people are forcibly displaced. Inequalities have worsened, strikingly so for women and girls. More people are being denied healthcare and education. The climate crisis is causing destruction to lives and livelihoods. This collective failure will impact every country and all of us; but the burden falls most heavily on developing countries and the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people. 

Thus, we must take urgent action now, and the SDG Summit is a vital opportunity to act and break through to a better world. The SDG summit is also a moment to recommit to a vision of the future that ensures no one is left behind and fulfills human rights for all without any form of discrimination. To be able to face these challenges, fundamental shifts in commitment, solidarity, financing, and action must put us back on track to end poverty and inequalities, realize just societies and reset a balanced relationship with the natural world. 

The world leaders, who are gathering in NY these days, must choose to fulfill the promises they have made, and respect their obligations and commitments. There is no place left for failure. As “The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2023” stipulated: The SDGs are in peril. The world has entered an age of poly-crisis and hard-earned SDG progress is threatened by the climate crisis, conflict, gloomy global economic outlook, and lingering COVID-19 effects. It sounds the alarm and urgently calls for redoubled efforts to get the Goals back on track. 

  • Sounding the Alarm: The world faces big misses across the Goals by 2030 in the absence of significant acceleration.

A preliminary assessment of the roughly 140 targets for which data is available shows that only about 12 per cent are on track; more than half, although showing some progress, are moderately or severely off track; and some 30 per cent have either seen no movement or regressed below the 2015 baseline.

The number of people living in extreme poverty rose for the first time in a generation with the onset of COVID-19. For the first time in three decades, progress in key areas such as childhood vaccination and income inequality between countries has reversed. If present trends persist, by 2030, a staggering 575 million people will remain trapped in extreme poverty and 84 million children will be out of school. It will take nearly 300 years to close gender gaps in legal protection, eliminate discriminatory laws and end child marriage.

  • We are at war with ourselves and nature.

The climate crisis is worsening as greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. Global temperature is likely to reach the critical 1.5 °C tipping point above pre-industrial levels by 2035. Heat waves, droughts, flooding, and wildfires have become far too frequent. Rising sea levels are already threatening hundreds of millions of people in coastal communities. 

  • Developing countries and the world’s poorest and most vulnerable are bearing the brunt.

The report shows that while the lack of SDG progress is universal, it is often the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people who are bearing the brunt of the consequences. Developing countries are also disproportionately affected, all while their voice is not fairly represented in the global governance architecture and in international financial institutions. This must change.

  • We must make the next seven years count – achieving the SDGs depends on it.

We can still turn things around. Since 2015, there have been improvements in key areas, including poverty reduction, child mortality, electricity access and the battle against certain diseases. If strong politics is matched with the technologies and resources and knowledge now available, we can enable a breakthrough to a better future. The report inspires hope by showcasing the progress the world has made and the potential for further advancements. 

  • We must enact a Rescue Plan for People and the Planet.

We must be ambitious to match the scope of the challenges ahead. Fundamental shifts in commitment, solidarity, financing, and action are needed to put us back on track.  The political declaration adopted by the high-level political forum on sustainable development ensures a common understanding among Member States to advance transformative actions leading up to the SDG target year of 2030. The political declaration represents the beginning of a new phase of accelerated implementation of the 2030 Agenda, which will need to be complemented by continuous high-level political guidance and national and local actions. This is an opportunity for all of us, citizens, journalists, civil society organizations, the private sector, to advocate for urgency, ambition, and action to realize the Goals.

  • Data drive effective solutions for SDG achievement.

Timely, high-quality disaggregated data are essential. Strengthening data ecosystems is critical to understanding where we stand and what needs to be done to achieve the SDGs. 

  • The 2030 Agenda remains the clearest blueprint of humanity’s highest aspirations.

The SDGs are a blueprint for a more resilient, peaceful, and inclusive future. When historians write about the twenty-first century, they will judge leaders and policymakers by whether they have succeeded in transforming this blueprint into reality. It is now up to all of us to ensure that the Global Goals are achieved – in full and on time. 

Silvia Osman

Silvia Osman, Associate Professor, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration | Romania

Silvia Osman is an Associate Professor at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Department of Sociology in Romania. Author of more than 20 books, Silvia Osman has also published many articles on literature, discourse and multicultural dialogue, paradigm shift in education, and mindsight within the framework of multimodal approaches to communication. She completed Foreign Policy and Diplomacy Program of the Romanian Diplomatic Institute. Ms. Osman has her Masters in European Integration from the UCDC, Faculty of Law and Administration Studies at Bucharest, and holds her PhD in Esthetics, Theory, Pedagogy and History of Theater.

 

Video Link:

Event Title: SDGs Conference 2023 Date: Sept 20, 2023
 

SPEECH

We are a global community and it is adequate to build momentum. It is said that it takes a whole village to raise a child. Therefore, raising an agenda and achieving it by 2030 takes a global community, a village. We started a series of SDGs Conference events with a roundtable discussion talking about human values, and timeless frameless norms, that take us closer to human rights. We have more strength in not only creatively rethinking frames but also thinking about the benefit of others. Thank you everyone for your life of service in implementing the goals. 

What do we need to build? The Sustainable Development Goals are very clear-cut forward, comprehensible, and offer a roadmap creating momentum. Actually, momentum is a property of a moving body that determines the time required to bring it to rest under the action of a constant force. So yes, our global actions are the constant force that when applied can bring momentum. 

We will not rest until all those things we are fighting for, from human rights or human values to the surface of our global world, are in place. Yes, we are the moving body that makes the momentum happen, and I am sure that you will agree with me and contribute to building it. Love is a verb; it is a deep human value essential to all our acts. So, it means using the bricks of our own imagination, the building blocks of the momentum we need to bring about. I call on everyone to roll up their slaves and put our values to work while we build a community, a global community of action, and establish a roadmap.

H.E. Mr. Stan O. Smith

H.E. Mr. Stan O. Smith, Ambassador, Permanent Mission of Bahamas to the UN | Bahamas

H.E. Mr. Stan O. Smith is the Permanent Representative of Bahamas to the United Nations. Before his latest appointment, Ambassador Smith served as personal assistant to Prime Minister Perry Gladstone Christie from 2018 to 2021. He was Ambassador-at-Large between 2015 and 2017, Head of the Legal Division in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as a contributor to its United Nations teams on human rights. During that time, he also provided general foreign policy development support. Before his diplomatic career, Ambassador Smith practiced law in Barbados between 2005 and 2015. Earning a bachelor’s degree from St. Mary’s University in Canada, he is also a graduate of the University of the West Indies Law School.

 

Video Link:

Event Title: SDGs Conference 2023 Date: Sept 20, 2023
 

SPEECH

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Excellencies, Honored Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of the Journalists and Writers Foundation with the John Jay College of Criminal Justice,

I mark this a privilege, an honor and thank the organizers for this opportunity to discuss “Building a New Momentum Towards the 2030 Deadline for the SDGs” under the general theme “Transforming Our World”. I also take this opportunity to acknowledge the integral role that journalists and writers play in shaping public opinion, and informing the world in an increasingly, physically dangerous environment against journalists and writers. I express thanks for your commitment to covering the challenges and opportunities faced in seeking to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. 

In January of this year, Foreign Policy published an article by Adam Tooze about the development profile of The Bahamas. The point of the article was that: the Climate Crisis has eliminated the resilience in The Bahamas’s economic model (Tourism; Financial Services and the Second Home Market) and we need innovations that can sustain socio-economic health against the volatility of the Climate Change landscape.

The annual cost of natural disasters to SIDS is $1Trillion. This is a perennial SIDS challenge to achieving the SDGs.

NOW, do we attempt to activate the politically unused regulations and policy reliefs of the international financial institutions? Do we continue to universalize the policies and individualize (bi-lateralize) the innovations dynamics?

OR, should we universalize the innovations dynamics and individualize policies? Do we address the SDGs, goal by goal? Do we invest in moonshot initiatives that create network effects more readily activating otherwise untapped capacities useful to, and meeting, the target of immediate community needs?

The development community must address the mechanics about how to arrive at sustainable, resilient prosperity that eliminates ‘genies in bottles’ from the search for and the discovery of sustainable innovations. The questions we ask 8 years after the adoption of the SDGs tells us this: our politics; our finance experts and our country’s interests, are not connected to one another on common global challenges; not by connected language, not by experience, not by vision. 

Small Island Developing States are consumed by managing governance and lack implementation capacity; international financial institutions have nothing to lose that would incentivize commitment to reform; and development agencies lack scale. The Bahamas has made a pivot from this vacuum. 

The reality is that:

  •           1% of CARICOM state budgets are invested in science and technology;  
  •           the Global North produces 60% of scientific literature;
  •           and 10 countries, not including The Bahamas, have absorbed 65% of World Bank loans. 

The Government is now investing in understanding the science and the technology needed to benefit from the untapped ocean value in the archipelago. It has recently created a carbon market registry and will next offer a $500 million bond against the seagrass sequestration capacity in the country’s 100,000 square miles of blue economy potential.

Not long ago, I was waiting in line for a diplomat of more than four decades of accomplishment to sign my copy of his book. He asked one of my CARICOM colleagues who was at the front of the book-signing line: How does such a small country win a Nobel Prize? At that moment I realized that a country with $500 billion dollar GDP only wanted a Nobel Prize and hasn’t gotten one. The small country with a Nobel prize really wanted $500 billion GDP, and the challenge is how to get it.

We have each been winning alone, and we have each been structurally failing alone in the deficiencies of our resilience models. In one instance, I became aware of a small state that received development assistance on 40 projects, and every project failed because of that state’s lack of capacity to deliver the projects.

Here’s an essential question a SIDS expert asked a donor country partner:

  •     “Are SIDS states equipped for partnership engagement?”

Here was the reply:

  •     “[Country] assistance is likely needed at earlier phases of initiatives.”

Multilateralism has overemphasized bilateral solutions built on funding ourselves out of challenges.  But we should be mindful that financing goals should not consume development ambitions into a solitary track. Funding is not the end of the development initiative. It is preparation for at least seven critical processes after 1st expertly, thoroughly, conceptualizing the initiative. We have, unfortunately, under-conceptualized the network benefits of framework thinking for the maximization of delivery outcomes.  The proposition here is that we should create a sustainability, resilience framework. 

We should physically integrate the private sector into the UN. The framework must be enabled to deal with the acceleration of negative development disruptions and the need of states to recover quickly and cost-effectively.  

This framework should give partnerships the implementation capacity for dealing with:

  •       Managing the conceptualization process;
  •       Executing the initiative;
  •       Monitoring phases of the process;

       AND 

  •       Managing delivery of outcomes.

This framework should widen our capability:

  •       To realize the Innovation Creation Dynamics in individual and across similar initiatives; 
  •       To realize the thematic essential in viable initiatives and essential for delivery outcomes; 
  •       And to otherwise, realize unexplored Partnerships and Investment Pipelines.

I have adopted these terms for elements of my framework from discussions with the President of the Caribbean Development Bank, Dr. Gene [Leon], in discussions about improving development resilience. However, the genesis of this framework came from the fusion of two assignments I undertook in chairing a meeting on moving beyond GDP and in discussing Financing for Development with like-minded colleagues around the UN Campus.

I think small states like The Bahamas can get ahead of the innovation challenge posed in the Foreign Policy piece with the benefit of policy tools like the Bridgetown Initiative and the Multi-dimensional Vulnerability Index (the MVI) being applied to a resilience framework as I have sketched it in the below diagram.