Unlocking MOI for SDGs and creating an enabling environment

FINAL NGO MG intervention to the official meeting 7/18/2016.

I am Maria Theresa Lauron of CPDE, APRN & AP-RCEM, Women Major Group, speaking for the NGO Major Group.

We can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but in this case we won’t have to.

I have 5 points, all of which are nothing new. These are commitments made, but have yet to be realized even if it seems we are going around in circles trying to find the right formula for MOI, which many colleagues say, are MIA.

First:

How do we expect a fully functioning MOI if governments don’t even meet their basic requirements to ODA and commitments to development co-operation?

Untying of aid, ending policy conditionality, use of country systems, transparency of information and development  flows  – these are not unfinished business but rather a core business for MOI.  

Second:

How do we meet the ambition of the 2030 Agenda without reviewing the structural impediments to achieving the Agenda?

Many states, including governments from the global south, are doing the opposite - embedding economic systems that worsen inequality through trade and investment treaties which are reaching farther and deeper across the borders; by increasing military spending and conflicts and engaging in proxy wars; by turning a blind eye to issues of corruption and governance breakdowns, by enabling greater land and resource grabbing, by ignoring and even fueling fundamentalist and extremist practices, by reducing the space for civil society to prosper.

Third

Why this fixation on raising more resources for the SDGs through means that hurt the poor the most, when we should be going after the world’s wealthiest corporations and individuals who know how to legally evade taxes?

The FfD Conference in Addis Ababa did not establish the inter-governmental taxation body. Remember the Panama Papers?  We certainly need a comprehensive mechanism for international taxation, without which the discussion of FfD is insufficient and inappropriate.

Fourth

How can we unlock MOI if not all development partners and partnerships are accountable to the people?

Private Sector (PS), especially transnational corporations, must adhere to all development effectiveness and human rights principles, promote and practice decent work and adopt transparency and accountability norms.

Fifth

And most of all, how do we expect to properly implement the SDGs with this framework if CSOs are left behind?

Civil society is an independent development actor, and we ask you to support our ‘right to initiative’. In more than a few countries, that space is closing at a very alarming rate. Political will and action is required to reverse this trend and to make the global partnership and the MOI work.

There is no EE if environmentalists and HR defenders – with women HR defenders at the core, are. being silenced, criminalized, and murdered.