RIO DE JANEIRO,
Friday, June 15, 2012 — Rights for Sustainability (R4S) delegate
and IBON International program manager Paul Quintos put the case
for a transformative development agenda to replace the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) at a Rio+20 side event.
Quintos appeared at
the event organized by IBON International and the United Nations
Non-Government Liaison Service (UN-NGLS) alongside speakers from
the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the International
Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Global Policy Forum Europe, and
UN-NGLS.
The event focused
on the potential of “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs), an
idea first tabled by Colombia and being debated at Rio+20. It is
believed that SDGs could be the framework to replace MDGs when
they expire in 2015.
While acknowledging
the success of MDGs in raising public awareness and galvanizing
public commitment to address major socio-economic problems,
Quintos said governments and the UN Development Group must first
ask why many countries are off track to meet the targets.
Quintos said:
“Development goals are not the same as development strategies,”
adding that the MDG approach risks reducing the development
process to “meeting specific, absolute, and measurable aspects of
poverty or underdevelopment – such as hunger, or infant mortality
– without tackling the root causes of poverty and underdevelopment
that give rise to hunger and preventable deaths in the first
place.”
Quintos explained
that without addressing the world’s uneven power relations and
“wrongheaded policy choices at the root of poverty and
underdevelopment,” any seeming successes with meeting targets will
quickly erode.
He argued that the
processes used to develop a post-2015 development agenda should be
grounded at the national level, not remain at the global, and
should ensure the meaningful participation of all stakeholders and
development actors.
“SDGs should be
about coming out with alternative visions of development, of
well-being, and of course the strategies necessary to attain this
vision,” he said.
“The post-2015 development agenda should not
be merely an extension of the unfinished agenda of MDGs but truly
transformative, equitable, just, grounded in human rights and
guided by a new consciousness that respects the integrity of
nature.” #Rights for
Sustainability
Delegation at Rio+20 Summit
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