Southern Voice Alert 11: December 2013

• Southern Voice Chair addresses Open Working Group

Chair of Southern Voice Debapriya Bhattacharya, Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Policy Dhaka (CPD) addressed at the Sixth Session of Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on 12 December 2013, at UN Headquarters in New York.The session was chaired by Ambassador Csaba Körösi, Permanent Representative of Hungary to the UN and co-chair of the OWG.

In his presentation Dr. Deb urged that Least Developed Countries (LDC) category maybe used as the “defining element” for addressing the concerns of the countries with special needs. The interests of the Land Locked Developing Countries (LLDCs), Small Island Developing States (SIDS), conflict-affected, fragile, environmentally vulnerable and African countries are essentially encapsulated in the concept of LDCs. He highlighted the need to determine the balance among the three dimensions of sustainable development, namely economic, social and environmental in the context of LDCs. He also pointed out the challenge of determining the balance between the “unfinished agenda” of the MDGs and the “new issues” of the post-2015 agenda. Deb Bhattacharya also noted that the accountability mechanism of post-2015 framework will greatly depend on data availability, while access to data; is not just a technical one, but also a political issue in many countries.

• Southern Voice Chair Speaks UNGA Side Events

Dr. Deb Participated as a panelist at a discussion organised by the United Nations Development Group, Asia and the Pacific and Asia-Pacific Regional Coordination Mechanism (RCMA) on the “the means of implementation of post-2015 agenda” at UN Head Quarter in New York, on 11 December, 2013. The other members of the panel were Martin Khor, Executive Director, South Centre; Atul Kohli, Professor of Politics, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University and Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Professor, International Affairs Program, The New School. The discussion was moderated by Nisha Pillai former BBC World News presenter.

• SV member Priyanthi Fernando joins OECD panel discussion

Priyanthi Fernando, Executive Director of the Centre for Poverty Analysis (CEPA)–a Southern Voicenetwork member attended a panel discussion sponsored by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and organised by Intelligence Squared in London on 5 December, 2013. Leaders from the development think tanks around the world offered wide ranging perspectives on what needs to be done to end poverty after 2015.The discussion took place in the context of the OECD report titled “Ending Poverty”.

The other members of the panel were Erik Solhem, Chairperson of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC); Homi Kharas, former Executive Secretary of the UN High Level Panel on Post 2015;Sabena Alkire, Director, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative; and Jamie Drummond, ONE campaign. Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive, Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts facilitated the session.

• Southern Voice at Bali WTO Ministerial Meeting

Southern Voice in association with CPD, ICTSD, The Commonwealth, SAWTEE and LDC IV Monitororganised a dialogue on “Integrating Trade Issues in Post-2015 International Development Framework: Ongoing Debates and Potential Opportunities,” on the side lines of the Ninth WTO Ministerial Conference (WTO MC9). The dialogue was organized on 5 December, 2013as part of the Bali Trade and Development Symposium (TDS).

Chaired by Dr. Deb, Chair of theSouthern Voice and LDC IV Monitor, the session addressed the importance of the trade-related issues which came out of post-2015 international development discourse, with a special attention on investment, finance, Aid for Trade (AfT) and technology-related issues. Given the stalemate in WTO negotiation, the role of multilateral trading system in shaping the post-2015 trade agenda was discussed in the session. It also addressed major trade-related concerns of vulnerable economies including LDCs in the context of post-2015 agenda.

Speakers at the dialogue included Ambassador Shanker Das Bairagi, Permanent Representative of Nepal to the WTO; Carlos A Primo Braga, Professor of International Political Economy at IMD Business School, Switzerland; Cheikh Tidiane Dieye, Coordinator, Trade, Regional Integration & Development, Enda Tiers Monde, Senegal; Nicolas Imboden, Executive Director, IDEAS Centre, Switzerland; Rashid S Kaukab, Director, CUTS International, Switzerland; Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz, Chief Executive, ICTSD, Switzerland;Jane Seruwagi Nalunga, Country Director, Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI), Kampala, Uganda; Posh Raj Pandey, Executive Chairman, SAWTEE, Nepal; Cyrus Rustomjee, Director, Economic Affairs Division, The Commonwealth; Dirk Willem teVelde, Investment and Growth Programme, Overseas Development Institute (ODI), UK; and Rorden Wilkinson, Professor of International Political Economy, University of Manchester, UK.

The Southern Voice/CPD delegation comprised of Mustafizur Rahman, Executive Director; Fahmida Khatun, Research Director; and Khondaker Golam Moazzem, Additional Research Director of CPD also participated in the dialogue. Prior to this event the CPD hosted an international conference titled “Upcoming Ninth WTO Ministerial: Securing the LDCs Deliverables” in Dhaka on October 25-26, 2013 to highlight interests of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the context the Ninth WTO Ministerial Conference. A (draft) Outcome Document was prepared by the CPD based on the rich discussions and the recommendations of the two-day conference. The Document articulates the key deliverables in Bali in specific areas of LDC interest which were discussed at the conference. The Document will be subsequently finalised and widely disseminated among key stakeholders including WTO negotiators, LDC Ministers and important stakeholders.