Global leaders arrive in New York – can they make progress on a new set of Development Goals?

By Steve Lewis from RESULTS UK

From Monday onwards Presidents and Prime Ministers will arrive in New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Among the issues they will grapple with are two of special interest to RESULTS and the development community – firstly how to tackle Climate Change, and secondly to make progress on fixing a new set of development goals.

Alongside the political leaders, leaders of all the major development institutions will be in New York, among them many of the agencies that RESULTS works with on a daily basis. Institutions such as GAVI (The Global Vaccine Alliance); GPE (The Global Partnership for Education) and SUN (Scaling Up Nutrition) hold events to publicise new successes or discuss innovations. RESULTS UK will be present during ‘UNGA week’, along with our partners from Canada, the EU, Kenya, India and of course the USA.

An international consortium of NGOs called “Beyond2015” have been working together to urge global leaders to set ambitious targets for the next set of Development Goals, to start in 2016. The current Millennium Development Goals run from 2000 to 2015.  Last week Beyond 2015 in the UK asked Development Minister Lynn Featherstone to explain what the UK is hoping to achieve from the UN discussions.

“The  post 2015 negotiations will be one of our top priorities in New York” , said Ms Featherstone. “UN negotiations so far have made some good progress, but there is much work to do. The current draft set of goals needs to be more concise, compelling and implementable.”

“The UK has shown leadership on setting strong development goals. But efforts to combat poverty will be totally undermined if Climate Change is not reversed. If the global climate does rise by 2 degrees we will face a very challenging situation – crop failures, steeply rising hunger, mass migration, to name just a few examples of what the world will face”.

The UK will be represented in New York by deputy PM Nick Clegg. The government is proud of recent progress on UK aid. A bill is moving through parliament to guarantee in law the current 0.7% of Gross National Income for international development. The second reading of the bill was supported by 166 MPs, with only 6 votes against. This will be used in New York as a ‘good example’, to encourage other countries to raise the aid contributions. As Lynn Featherstone described it: “We need to broaden the shoulders of the aid effort…. at present the same countries are supporting most of development programmes. We need a wider set of contributors.”

RESULTS and other Beyond 2015 agencies will be listening closely to the sessions next week to keep the UK to its word. And to try to encourage other countries to also increase their commitment. We are insistent that the next development framework includes ambitious goals – and that this time the goal is not a reduction in poverty but an end to extreme poverty by 2030.

Steve Lewis from RESULTS UK will be in New York next week. Please follow this blog next week to get updates from the UN and find out what has been achieved.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of RESULTS Australia.

RESULTS Australia welcomes UK aid bill – a huge wake up call for Australia

                                                                                                                                        photo: RESULTS UK

On Friday 12 September, the UK House of Commons voted to progress a bill bringing them a step closer to having laws that commit 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) to international aid. This is truly historic for the UK but in stark contrast to Australia’s aid level which is less than half this and falling.

What is especially impressive is that a predominantly Conservative British government - in the middle of a slow recovery from a dramatic financial crisis - not only managed to reach 0.7% but will likely preside over it being enshrined in law to lock this commitment in for the foreseeable future. 

In contrast, Australia’s aid has declined from 0.35% of GNI to 0.32% of GNI in the last two years. 

“This is a huge wake up call to our own Government and other political parties that it can be done. Wouldn’t it be inspiring to see this type of cross-party support here?” said RESULTS Australia CEO, Maree Nutt. 

  

While the UK bill is a private member’s bill, members of all political parties in the House of Commons showed very strong support for the objectives and provisions of the bill.

“Its disappointing that here in Australia, successive governments have backed away from what was a bipartisan commitment to reach 0.5% of GNI by 2015-16. This had not been possible if the commitment been legislated.” Ms Nutt added. 

    

The UK was contributing only 0.32% of GNI in aid in 2000 (the same as Australia's current level of aid), and the sustained growth in the UK’s aid since then demonstrates what is possible with political vision and commitment. 

“The current cross-party support for maintaining the level of aid through legislation is a tribute to the consistent work of global poverty campaigners in the UK, not least our colleagues at RESULTS UK”  Ms Nutt said.  

Welcome to the family!

by Gina Olivieri, Grassroots Engagement Manager RESULTS Australia

On Sunday, August 31 2014, I welcomed a brand new addition to the RESULTS family. Not a baby, but a brand new group of enthusiastic advocates – RESULTS Melbourne!

Starting a new group is always an exciting and challenging process of networking, promoting, on-boarding, inviting, organising, rehearsing and preparing. It takes a lot of work to get a group of people together in the same place, at the same time, to talk to them about their role in ending extreme poverty.

Then you have to convince them to say yes to writing to their political representatives, and putting their passion for ending poverty out into public view by writing letters to the editor of their newspapers.

Not always an easy sell, believe it or not.

I am always in awe of the people who come along to a group launch event, perhaps after only hearing about RESULTS in passing – arriving with an understanding of the problem of poverty then putting their hand up to be part of the solution.

It takes a lot of guts to be a RESULTS group member. You really are signing up to ‘put yourself out there’ and challenge your comfort zone. Talking to members of parliament is not something many people choose to do with their spare time.

But it is what’s necessary to bring about the kind of changes we’re after; to create the political will to end hunger and the worst aspects of poverty, and to empower individuals to have breakthroughs in exercising their personal and political power.

The next RESULTS group to be launched will be RESULTS Perth – October 2014. If you are interested in joining this group or any other please contact info@results.org.au