SURVIVING DEVELOPMENT

For The Bohol Tribune
In This Our Journey - for 23 August 2015 issue
NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

The other day I received a text message or SMS informing me that on 25 September, a Tuesday, the new global development agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals (SGS), would be launched in the country. I figured that would be less than two weeks after its official declaration by the UN General Assembly in New York. 

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I was specifically requested to inform the sender, nameless and only a number, on how we intend to launch the SGS in “your municipalities or cities.”

The request made me think that some official or unofficial groups must have been formed some time back to drum up involvement in this new global agenda. This way of announcing a major event is quite a departure from the usual procedure adopted by the UN or the national government. Usually arrangements for such big events is done through planning bodies such as the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) and its counterpart bodies such as the planning and development offices at provincial and municipal levels.

I decided to ignore the request and wait for more details about the source of the message, the event that was announced in so informal and unorthodox way and to focus more on the purpose of this week’s column to continue to orient readers on the new global development agenda coming their way. I am doing this not in any official capacity with the Government but as a development worker with a development NGO.

The reader will recall that so far I have discussed in the two previous columns the basics about the 17 SDGs and the focus on Localizing SDGs, as well as the implications of the global agenda to our development work here in Bohol.

On the eve of the international community’s adoption of a new development agenda, it is important to pause, review what have gone before and understand precisely how do we relate to the new global development agenda which emphasizes local action and commitment more than in previous advocacies.

To be sure, the past four decades or so has been an exhilarating ride for those in the emerging development industry, the planners, implementers, evaluators, and consultants, mostly paid for by international donors. It is not yet a thrilling ride yet for the millions who have yet to be brought to the mainstream of global development and partake of the services, benefits and entitlements under a global partnership.

With this in mind, let’s take a quick look at this journey taken in efforts towards achieving global development during the previous decades -
In the 1950s , the UN recognized that the emphasis on economic growth was misplaced, that there should be practical measures adopted to address poverty other than to increase the Gross National Product (GNP). Consequently, during the First UN Development Decade (1960-70), the conversations were mostly about economic growth and its integration with social development.

The UN realized that development focused almost exclusively on economic growth “leaves behind, or in some ways, even creates, large areas of poverty, stagnation, marginality and actual exclusion from social and economic progress …,” as stated in the UN Report of the 1969 Meeting of Experts on Social Policy and Planning.

On 24 October 1970, the UN called for the need to formulate an International Development Strategy and launched a project to identify a unified approach to development and planning “which would fully integrate the economic and social components in the formulation of policies and programmes.” The concern for a unified approach among the countries resulted in a grand disarray with each key problem being identified as candidate for integration: environment, population, hunger, women, habitat or employment.

Subsequently efforts failed to produce simple universal strategies which would make possible integration among key problems and within each defined problem area. Those involved in this exercise were “constantly in dispute arising from the old controversy over priorities and the day-to-day disputes among bureaucratic bodies for survival and allocation of resources.”
Although disappointing, this initial search for a unified approach to development was able to characterize the components needed to bring about such sought-after integration.

The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), organized in 1963, cited the need for components designed:

1. To leave no sector of the population outside the scope of change and development;
2. To effect structural change which favors national development and to activate all sectors of the population;
3. To aim at social equity, including the achievement of an equitable distribution of income and wealth in the nation;
4. To give high priority to the development of human potentials … the provision of employment opportunities and meeting the needs of children.

These key ideas have been reflected in succeeding efforts to focus development on people, that the purpose of development “should not be to develop things but to develop man.”

In June 1976, ILO organized the Conference on Employment, Income Distribution and Social Progress which resulted in the popular Basic Needs Approach, “aiming at the achievement of a certain specific minimum standard of living before the end of the century.” The World Bank adopted it as an approach because it could serve as sequel to a strategy it started in 1973 which focused on the rural poor and small farmers. The approach was also promoted by many governments and experts from various international organizations.

The Basic Needs Approach deals directly with the needs of specific target groups rather than meet these needs as a result of a generalized and long-winded development process. It satisfied the need for an approach that can be universally applied and country-specific at the same time.

During the same period, UNESCO advocated the concept of endogenous development. It arose from an analysis that development could not proceed as imitation of the industrial growth model but instead it must take into account the particularities of each country. At a later stage, it was observed that such a model could lead to the “dissolution of the very notion of development, after realizing the impossibility of imposing a single cultural model for the whole world.”

For the 1980s, known as the lost decade for development, adjustments were made in many countries to dismantle previous accomplishments to cope wth massive problems brought about upheavals in the world economy. During this decade, however, UNICEF launched globally its basic services strategy which aimed to deliver integrated services for children in relatively remote and disadvantaged communities.

By the 1990s, among the rich and industrialized countries, the so-called structural adjustments of the previous decade led to reassessment of achievements in the economy and socio-political reforms, as well as use of technologies which posed a threat to the environment. For the poor countries, the decade saw the “last and definitive assault against organized resistance to development and the economy.”

During this decade the phrase “Sustainable Development” became current as strategy or goal for what was called by the Bruntland Commission a “common future” for humankind. This concept provided a perspective for looking at development in a new light, in the context of economic, social and environmental factors which need to be harnessed for international peace, survival and progress.

In 1990, UNDP published the first Human Development Report which defines human development as both a process of expanding options for relevant human choices and as a level of achievement which compares improvements in human development among countries through the Human Development Index, combining indicators in life expectancy, literacy and income. Through the HDI, countries can be compared as to their performance in achieving human development from year to year.

From 2000 to 2015, the whole world pursued what have been known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) consisting of 8 goals and 21 targets. Now by next month, a new global development agenda will be unfurled termed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
It will consist of 17 goals and 169 targets which will be pursued from September 2015 to September 2030.

All these global development agendas from the First Development Decade (1960s to 1970s) to the MDGs (2000 to 2015) have influenced in some ways development planning and implementation in Bohol. Now that a new development agenda is about to be launched next month, it is best to review previous experiences and formulate a strategy on how best to move the process forward through involvement of local government units, civil society organizations and local communities in translating a global development agenda into actual plans and programs.

Indeed localizing SDGs must result in actual and measurable benefits to specific poverty groups and communities in the province. Otherwise, we will just be surviving development agendas with their avalanche of consultations, workshops and assessments with no significant projects on the ground to benefit the poor . ‪#‎Sustainabledevelopmentgoals‬

NMP/19 Aug 2015/ 6.40 p.m.

PUTTING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGs) IN LOCAL CONTEXT

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

Putting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Local Context

Localization has been an important feature in promoting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and in formulating the successor Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as global agenda to address poverty and other problems which have for decades affected humankind.

While localization for the MDGs was thought of and planned in 2005, five years after its launching, it was the subject of intensive dialogues undertaken by the UN with key governance stakeholders and constituencies which took place from June  to October 2014.

Discussions on localization followed the unprecedented multi-sectoral consultation process on potential issues and areas to be included in the post-2015 development agenda conducted from 2012 to 2013. The emphasis given to localization during phase two of what has been referred to as “global conversations” on implementation and necessarily, monitoring and evaluation, indicates a recognition by the UN member-states of the need to bring global concerns to the grassroots.

The recommendations that emerged from these dialogues and consultation process seem to me as genuine efforts to make local communities, their governance and local institutions, their traditions and culture, as key ingredients to translate global development agenda into locally-owned aspirations embedded in local plans and programs. Indeed localization has been recognized as strategy to lift people from poverty and  other global problems such as inequality and climate change.

Let us harvest some key ideas from the Report from these dialogues on localization and try to put them in our development context in Bohol:

First, on the definition of Localization, the Report (Localizing Post-2015 Development Agenda – Dialogues on Implementation) says:

“Localization refers to the process of defining, implementing and monitoring strategies at the

local level for achieving global, national and subnational sustainable development goals and targets. This involves concrete mechanisms, tools, innovations, platforms and processes to effectively translate the development agenda into results at the local level.

“The concept should therefore be understood holistically, beyond the institutions

of local governments, to include all local actors through a territorial approach that includes civil

society, traditional leaders, religious organizations, academia, the private sector and others. We firmly believe, however, that a strong and capable local government provides the fundamental leadership role to bring local stakeholders together.”

From this definition alone, we can see what can be a major constraint to localizing the SDGs. Local leadership is key to the emergence of multi-stakeholder governance. In Bohol, as in other provinces, we have an abundance of structures mandated by the government at various levels or organized by civil society organizations, such as faith-based organizations and NGOs. Somehow local leadership is not there to bring all the people in these structures together in pursuit of common development goals or less loftily, to implement projects.

We are good at organizing structures at local levels to the extent that management experts have commented that in Bohol, as in the rest of the country, we are afflicted with a malady called “organisitis.” At the drop of a hint, we form groups or organizations but we almost always turn these into paper structures, something to show on the charts and they fizzle out as easily as they are formed. They are mostly built around personalities, mostly around those with political clout or other sources of influence.

Now how can we develop the type of leadership that can breathe life to development councils, inter-agency committees, women’s and youth groups, and other existing structures so that we can pursue and sustain global and localized development goals?  We have to study the few organizations which have withstood intrigues, divisive tendencies, political and other interventions or the usual inertia of rest which afflicts most groups and organiations.

These are some thoughts to chew on while we ponder on this relevant issue about localizing SDGs. This human behavior in organizations will be an excellent field for the academe to get into and come up with fresh insights into leadership issues and organizational behavior on this exciting journey in localizing an externally-crafted global development agenda.

This negative trend in human behavior in organizations is also a reflection of erosion in values that people subscribe to. Here is where culture and the arts, as well as religion, can play its part  by initiating a Renaissance of sort to create a pervasive counterculture of  our common humanity and enable majority of the people, including their leaders, to both internalize and “massify” the adherence to social ethics and values.

The Report notes:

“In the last decade, the development agenda has broadened with the emergence of a wide range of global challenges. It has also seen growing demand for improved access to global public goods and calls for innovative institutional arrangements and solutions. It is evident that the local dimension of development is increasingly intertwined with global and national issues.

“The role of cities in development will grow, as 60 percent of the world’s population will

live in cities by 2030. Issues such as peace, human security, health, employment, climate change, and migration are now addressed mainly at the national and international level, but long-term solutions often require attention to local dimensions, implications and nuances, and most solutions will require local planning, participation and governance.

“Lessons learned from the MDGs show the key role of local government in defining and delivering the MDGs, and in communicating them to citizens. Evidence for this includes the multiplication of decentralized development cooperation initiatives and the use of city-to-city cooperation as a cost effective mechanism for implementation”

I recall that in 2004 as a consultant on governance and poverty reduction, I submitted to the late Atty. Juanito Cambangay, Bohol’s Provincial Planning and Development Coordinator, a bare-bones concept of creating a Metro Tagbilaran Development Authority. As proposed , the MTDA will be composed of Tagbilaran City and the surrounding municipalities of Dauis, Panglao, Baclayon, Albur, Cortes, Corella, and Sikatuna,

The idea was the same that led to the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority, Bicol River Basin Authority and the Metro Manila Development Authority which is to bring about a predominantly technical body to oversee and coordinate efforts to address common problems.

In the case of Bohol, it would be to achieve greater coordination among the LGUs in solving common problems related to garbage disposal, water and sanitation, public infrastructures and facilities, unemployment  Later, the concept was expanded to having similar structures but instead of using the existing BIAD (Bohol Integrated Area Development), the identified rapidly-urbanizing municipalities was to be considered the focal LGU for the surrounding municipalites in the creation of a sub-provincial development authorities more technically and morally competent to work alongside politically-controlled governance structures.

Nothing came out of this concept. No donor was interested to have it developed into a full-blown proposal.

It may be a good time to revisit these rough ideas and draw up an enchanced concept in the light of this broadened development areas that LGUs, CSOs and the private sector have to contend with in pursuing the localized SDGs.

Moreover, the task environment since the first global development agenda. The fast growth in Information Technology and its impact on making available tools, information and innovations while creating job opportunities also helps to add complexities to the work environment of ordinary people. Closing the digital gap will be needed in pursuing inclusive growth and equality. It will have impact, too, in reconfiguring local governance structures.

The Report notes further:

“All parties concurred that local stakeholders must play an important role in the development and

implementation of the SDGs. Their needs, interests and concerns must be clearly addressed when local and national development strategies are defined. The prioritization of mechanisms to enhance participation was considered critical if people are to contribute to common development.

“The inclusion of individual and territorial stakeholders in the definition of priorities and in

the allocation of funds was perceived as a means to hold governments, both national and local,

accountable and committed to fighting corruption and fraud. This was one of the main issues

expressed by participants globally …In the Philippines, participatory budgeting was seen as

a tool to improve transparency and accountability mechanisms and to prevent local corruption.”

The decentralization of planning to sub-national and sub-provincial levels should necessarily be complemented with financial autonomy. Otherwise, such decentralization will not be effective. I think I do not have to belabor this point since this a lesson learned in more than twenty five years of the Decentralization Law.

On Culture and Development, the Report states: “Culture-led redevelopment of urban areas and public spaces helps preserve the social fabric, attracts investment and improves economic returns. Cities are increasingly faced with the challenges of diversity and inequality, and can benefit greatly from culture to increase inclusion and promote greater social cohesion. The protection of historic districts and cultural facilities as civic spaces for dialogue can help to reduce violence and promote cohesion.”

These are some of the key ideas in the Report which have formed the basis for the recommendations on how to pursue these goals with localization as basic consideration.

To the long list of specific recommendations, the Report adds something which is missing from the previous global development agenda: “Underline the importance of establishing sustainable financing mechanisms to localize the global development agenda and build responsive and accountable local institutions. This includes the full and effective participation of local governments in public expenditure.”

Now we await with bated breath the announcement next month of the final Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the approval of the recommendations for localizing them to ensure their successful implementation for the period 2016 to 2030. #Sustainabledevelopmentgoals

NMP/14Aug/2015/5.32 a.m.

                                         

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGs) - Issues and Concerns

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

On the eve of the formal announcement by the United Nations, due to happen next month, about the adoption of a new set of global development goals to replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it will be best for us in Bohol to revisit key issues and concerns about the MDGs and the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The first issue is the question why bother at all about the SDGs, same query made about its predecessor, the MDGs, some fifteen years ago. The reality is that majority of the world’s inhabitants, particularly those who are poor and marginalized, are not even aware that these goals exist. They are busy grappling with day-to-day problems related to survival to bother about these global goals.

Millions out there who remain burdened by poverty and its attendant ills do not know, or they do not even care to know, these globally-defined aspirations, a result of an intricate process of consultations and consensus-building activities, paid for mostly by member-countries of the UN. The target clientele of poverty reduction programs , desperately but like most Filipinos, gleefully, hanging between survival and physical extinction cannot be expected to recite the global development goals much less explain the impact of such goals to their lives.

In 2005, while working with Habitat for Humanity International as regional manager for Southeast Asia, I chanced upon a video used by an NGO during briefing sessions on the MDGs. In less than five minutes, it showed what seemed to be wrong in the advocacy for the global development agenda: despite the hype and the expensive concerts beamed throughout the world in the initial years of the MDG advocacy, the message of what it intended to do was not received at all by ordinary people who were supposed to benefit from them.

The initial scenes show world leaders like Kofi Annan, Bill Clinton, and Francoise Mitterrand talking about eliminating poverty, hunger and disease presumably by pursuing the MDGs. Scarlett Johnsen says nations spend more for military weapons in three weeks than for poverty reduction programs for one year. Flamboyant singer Bono declares in typical histrionic fashion that this generation will be the first to see poverty eliminated, not reduced – mind you, on the planet. He is probably now eating his words if not the lyrics of the songs he composed during the period.

Madonna is shown singing while holding the hand of the Indian girl, now grown-up, rescued from illiteracy and poverty. This text is shown on screen while she sings: “Star power have been used to lobby for global poverty reduction. But despite all the publicity, many people seem not aware about the MDGs.”

To support this point, the video shows representatives of farmers, students, vendors, old people, the youth – yes, from all walks of life supposed to get involved and benefit from global pro-poor MDGs. Asked individually on what is meant by MDGs, five years after the global concerts and massive information campaigns held both nationally and internationally, the respondents say MDGs mean – hold your breath- a bird, a book, a TV show, a radio station, an airline, fertilizer, a bomb!

Someone says it is an acronym, which is quite obvious, while another mutters that it means Micro Dynamic Giraffe. Others seem to be stunned to have a response. One responded to say he has no idea at all what the global MDGs mean. Hence, this is the basic issue to contend with, in this task to make MDGs known by the very people who will benefit from this new development agenda.

I hope those who promote the new agenda will learn lessons from previous experiences in promoting MDGs as pro-poor development agenda

In Bohol, we used to interview applicants in projects and one question we asked was if they knew anything about MDGs. We estimated only three out of ten cases knew what the acronym means. This indicates that even in academic institutions, in colleges or universities, no systematic program had been adopted to create awareness about the MDGs.

These students, most of whom come from the poor, are potential agents to spread messages about poverty-related matters far and wide throughout the province. No wonder that when they do community volunteer work, they see everything except the faces of poverty and deprivation in the people they are supposed to help.

Later, in the course of our NGO work, we realized that perhaps the focus should not be on the acronym for the global agenda, that it may be quixotic for us to expect that the people should be reciting the goals and know the acronym as primary information to understanding the global agenda. It seems to us now that the best way to promote the global agenda, adopted supposedly as planning framework at municipal and barangay levels, is to just focus on the relevant needs and the expected services to be delivered to specific target groups based on local plans using the MDGs as framework.

Hence, the focus of so-called capacitation efforts from the national and sub-national levels is how to provide relevant technical inputs to enable the formulation of local plans based on specific needs identified through the use of the global development agenda.

In our opinion, localizing the SDGs should start with giving local partners the right to be creative in naming the SDG-based program at their level. While the world community has had almost three decades using and debating about what sustainability means in ecological, economic, cultural and social context, we must avoid the previous mistake of worshopping the people to death by too much emphasis on definitions rather than on actual identification of needs and what can be done at local government and community levels to address those needs.

It is also important that a consensus be created on whom to target first and the priority barangays or municipalities to assist based on mutually-agreed tools designed to produce an objective or politically neutral database on actual needs and priority groups or “poverty landscapes” deserving to get the bulk of external assistance.

Based on our experience in doing development work in Bohol and communities outside the country, which are relatively more disadvantaged than others in terms of geographic location, culture, political and religious affiliation, this initial planning task presents constraints which prevent a global development agenda to be carried out as basis for local plans and programs.

There is generally no capacity at subnational and local levels to technically assess the local development situation and realign plans, programs and projects from year to year according to the new requirements called for by changes in the situation of priority target groups or communities.

Pro-poor planning and targeting tools have multiplied to the confusion of the local governments. Rather than enhance the capacity to identify target groups and localities, facilitate the delivery of services to those most in need, the promotion of several tools make it impossible for local governments to establish a baseline as basis for tracking progress.

Aside from the proverbial lack of resources to address priority development problems, the available funds are misappropriated through corruption and political patronage. The other local institutions such as the Church, civil society and academic institutions are immersed in their parochial interests that they are prevented from being effective forces of hope and enlightenment to influence local decision making which affects the direction of resource allocation and local-level development.

The simple matter of documenting project experiences and extracting lessons is left solely in the hands of the planners and implementers without validation from academic institutions and other objective entities. Hence, what is called monitoring and evaluation in most projects has become an expensive and useless exercise to recycle planning assumptions and selective narration of milestones and accomplishments – or the benefit of donors and their partner entities. An objective assessment project experiences has become impossible to undertake.

Bohol reflects the situation of most provinces in the country as a whole and probably other subnational governance levels in the developing world. It is littered with the corpses of failed projects carried out more as pilot undertakings supported by external donors and in some cases, international agencies, who dominate the local development scene without regard to the local situation.

They promote their own tools, templates for planning and analysis without regard to local tools and initiatives previously undertaken and tested to determine who are the real poor and what pertinent services could be delivered to them within a predetermined time frame.

On the other hand, local government units and target poor communities lack the will and resilience to resist impertinent, redundant and wasteful tools and methodologies promoted by external agencies who backstop their respective advocacies with funds that local people and their local governments cannot resist. This is the insight that we now bring to this supposedly new thinking about localization as a strong feature of the new global development agenda.

In the previous column, I quoted UN Secretary-General Bank Ki Moon who says:

“It is often said that, like all politics, all development is ultimately local. As the world strives for a more sustainable path in the years ahead, particularly beyond 2015, local voices and local action will be crucial elements in our quest… it is crucial to preserve and nurture political spaces where local authorities can have an impact on decision-making at the global level. Local authorities have significantly increased their engagement in global processes. The inputs of local leaders and municipal planners have never been more critical …”

The message is given more specific content by UNDP Administrator Helen Clark:

“Many of the critical challenges of implementing the Post-2015 Development Agenda will depend heavily on local planning and service delivery, community buy in and local leadership; well-coordinated with the work of other levels of governance. Accountable local governments can promote strong local partnerships with all local stakeholders –civil society, private sector, etc–. Integrated and inclusive local development planning that involves all stakeholders is a key instrument to promoting ownership and the integration of the three dimensions of sustainable development –social, economic and environmental .”

In line with these policy statements, a consultation process involving representative countries and stakeholders have been conducted on Localizing SDGs these key issues and concerns:

“How will the Post-2015 Development Agenda be implemented at the local level? What local governance processes, tools, institutions, mechanisms, and other means of implementation are needed to achieve the future Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? How can the voices of local stakeholders be amplified and their inclusion in the intergovernmental processes be supported?”

I do not want to douse the enthusiasm of friends and colleagues who have become euphoric in reading these pronouncements. Nothing new with these issues actually. Our planners and development workers have wrestled with these key issues and concerns the past thirty years in this country and in most places in the developing world.

The task now is to revisit these experiences, make sure about the lessons learned from our collective undertakings as CSOs, NGOs and LGUs and use this learning as lens to evaluate the recommendations to be announced after the UN summit of 14 to 15 September this year.

Let us be resolute enough to address constraints more effectively in localizing the new development agenda. Let us have continuity in projects rather than have only pilot projects done in clusters over and over again.

We have had this way of doing development work for decades. About time we find the will to localize global agenda based on hard-earned lessons from previous experiences. Otherwise the pursuit of the new goals will be a grandiose exercise in futility. #BLDFsustainabledevgoals

NMP/06Aug2015/10.34 a.m.

NOTES ON THE NEW GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT AGENDA

For The Bohol Tribune

In This Our Journey

NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

Exit MDGs or Millennium Development Goals. Enter Sustainable Development Goals, the next global development agenda for another 15 years starting in 2016.

It will be recalled that in the year 2000, 189 member-states of the United Nations signed the Millennium Declaration, described as “a global commitment of countries, rich and poor alike, to achieve peace and security, respect for human rights, good governance, and human development - with attention given to the needs of the poor, the vulnerable and the children of the world.” 

This commitment was translated into what have been known as the Millennium Development Goals - or MDGs - a set of eight time-bound goals and targets designed to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.

I recall the euphoria felt by many people on hearing the news of the signing of the MDG agreement which happened almost a decade after the end of the Cold War, this conflict between US allies and countries politically aligned with Russia.

Adoption of the MDGs as a common development agenda despite differences in ideologies, religions, economic system and status, geographic and cultural differences was itself a significant milestone for the human race. For the first time, there is an articulated and signed agreement to address problems which blights humanity in many cultures such as malnutrition, infant mortality, illiteracy, maternal mortality, gender inequality, malaria and other major diseases, lack of safe drinking water and sanitation, and on the whole, achieve global partnership towards development through an equitable financial system and a commitment to “good governance, development and poverty reduction … both nationally and internationally.”

I recall intense discussions among UN colleagues in Fiji during the late 1990s while formulating the planning strategies undertaken at country and regional levels the outputs of which became contributions to the formulation of the MDGs. Soon after the MDGs were adopted as the common global agenda, there were talks about the need to create a world government, presumably based at the UN no doubt brought about by the realization that problems such as poverty, climate change, 

organized crime, including illegal drug trade, conflicts brought about by ethnic, cultural and political differences and corruption in governance cannot be handled by nation-states alone.

This optimism for new world order simmered down with the shocking 9/11 World Center bombing a litte more than a year after the signing of the global development agenda which was generally perceived to herald a regime of peace for all mankind. All the dreams about turning bullets into plowshares vanished into thin air and something close to paranoia set in to discourage if not to totally eliminate the hope for genuine world peace.

Against this backdrop of conflicts arising from the so-called  “Clash of Civilizations,” conflicts due to extremism in religious beliefs fused with ambitions for political domination, the pursuit of the MDGs happened nevertheless. During the last three years or so, there were intense and comprehensive efforts to sum up experiences in pursuing the MDGs at international, regional, national and even at subnational levels both to assess progress or lack of it and, more importantly, to extract lessons to guide current efforts to craft a new global development agenda.

This assessment of the MDGs reflects a consensus shared by political leaders and technocrats among the member-nations of the UN:  
 
“The MDGs have made a huge and significant impact on the lives of billions across countries and over the years; and by unifying the world’s priorities, the MDGs served to provide an overarching framework for development work across the world.
 
“However, progress has been uneven. Continuing gaps – on poverty, hunger, health, gender equality, water, sanitation and many other issues – will still need attention in most of the world’s countries and regions even after 2015.”

A more specific assessment of the MDGs is as follows:

“There is broad agreement that while the MDGs provided a focal point for governments on which to hinge their policies and overseas aid programs to end poverty and improve the lives of poor people – as well as provide a rallying point for NGOs to hold them to account – they have been criticized for being too narrow.

“The eight MDGs – reduce poverty and hunger; achieve universal education; promote gender equality; reduce child and maternal deaths; combat HIV, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; develop global partnerships – failed to consider the root causes of poverty, or gender inequality, or the holistic nature of development. The goals made no mention of human rights, nor specifically addressed economic development. While the MDGs, in theory, applied to all countries, in reality, they were considered targets for poor countries to achieve, with finance from wealthy states. Every country will be expected to work towards achieving the SDGs.

“As the MDG deadline approaches, around 1 billion people still live on less than $1.25 a day - the World Bank measure on poverty - and more than 800 million people do not have enough food to eat. Women are still fighting hard for their rights, and millions of women still die in childbirth.”

By September this year, member-countries of the UN are expected to sign a new commitment to pursue a set of goals determined after the international organization conducted what is considered the largest consultation program in its history. In contrast, the eight MDGs were reportedly drafted, or as legend would have it, by a think tank working in the basement of UN headquarters!

The Rio+20 summit held in 2012 mandated that an open working group, composed of representatives from 70 countries, be formed to conduct consultations and propose the post-2015 goals. In July 2014, the group published its recommendation and by September, it presented its draft report to the UN General Assembly.

An account of this extensive consultation process says: “Alongside the open working group, the UN conducted a series of  ‘global conversations’, which included 11 thematic and 83 national consultations, and door-to-door surveys. It also launched an online My World survey asking people to prioritize the areas they’d like to see addressed in the goals. Representatives from the Philippines, both from the Government and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) were part of this extensive consultation  towards the formulation of the new global development agenda.

The following Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are expected to be approved by the member-countries of the UN next month to be pursued globally for the period 2016 to 2030:

1) End poverty in all its forms everywhere

2) End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable    

    agriculture

3) Ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages

4) Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities

      for all

5) Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

6) Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

7) Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

8) Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive

    employment, and decent work for all

9) Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation, and foster

     innovation

10) Reduce inequality within and among countries

11) Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

12) Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

13) Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts (taking note of agreements

       made by the UN forum)

14) Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable

      developmentAdvertisement

15) Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage

      forests, combat desertification and halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity

      loss

16) Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to

      justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

17) Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable

     development

Within the goals are a proposed 169 targets, to put a bit of meat on the bones. Proposed targets under goal one, for example, include reducing by at least half the number of people living in poverty by 2030, and eradicating extreme poverty (people living on less than $1.25 a day). Under goal five, there’s a proposed target on eliminating violence against women. Under goal 16 sits a target to promote the rule of law and equal access to justice.

Of interest to us in Bohol will be the emphasis on localizing the SDGs given this statement from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon:

 “It is often said that, like all politics, all development is ultimately local. As the world strives for a more sustainable path in the years ahead, particularly beyond 2015, local voices and local action will be crucial elements in our quest… it is crucial to preserve and nurture political spaces where local authorities can have an impact on decision-making at the global level. Local authorities have significantly increased their engagement in global processes. The inputs of local leaders and municipal planners have never been more critical …”

Indeed this should be music to our ears since ourour project experiences in the Philippines and in Bohol particularly have validated the need to engage in more meaningful ways local communities, their organizations and the local government units to ensure the sustainability of  programs and projects.

Let me note here that localizing the global development agenda is not new in Bohol. Localizing the Monitoring System for MDGs was implemented in the province was launched in the  province  on 22 April 2005 and implemented for one year, from 16 March 2005 to 15 March 2006 in the municipalities of Tubigon, Bilar and Jagna with funding from EU and Oxfam Netherlands. Local and foreign NGOs implemented the project: Action for Economic Reforms, Process Bohol, Social Watch Philippines, La Aldea (a Spanish NGO), and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty.

It will be good to review the output of the project, Making a Difference (Localized Monitoring System on the MDGs), prior to the inception of the SDGs next year and gain lessons and insights on how to localize a global development agenda.  #SDGsbohol

NMP/31 July 2015/5.29 a.m.