Southern Voice Alert 3: April 2013

• Dr. Debapriya Bhattacharya, Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Dhaka and Chair, Southern Voice on Post-MDGs joined a panel of eminent discussants at the launch ofEuropean Report on Development (ERD) 2013 held  at the European Union’s headquarter in Brussels on 9 April 2013.  Dr. Debapriya agreed with core messages of the report, viz. there is a need to formulate a transformational development agenda for the post-2015 period and design an innovative framework of development cooperation to support implementation of such agenda. However, he pointed out that a number of important ingredients of that agenda has not been addressed in the report, including macroeconomic framework, technology transfer and intellectual property rights regime. He emphasised the need for EU to strengthen its leadership role in coordinating delivery of the global public goods. Dr Debapriya observed that developing countries will greatly benefit if EU can recover speedily from its current economic problems – an issue which has been overlooked in the report.

The session in Brussels was chaired by Professor Francois Bourguignon, ERD Scientific Advisor, and was addressed by EU Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs. Other distinguished members of the panel included Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development at DESA, Dr. Garry Conille, Senior Advisor to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, World Bank Group President’s Special Envoy for the MDGs and Dr. Jan Vandemoortele a co-architect of the MDGs.

• Richard Jones, Devex Associate Editor on Post-MDG issues in Brussels interviewed Dr. Bhattacharya, Chair, Southern Voice on Post-MDGs during the launching meeting of the European Report on Development 2013. (https://www.devex.com/en/news/post-mdg-agenda-exclusive-interview-with-key/80739)
• Enrique Mendizabal, an independent researcher and advisor on think tanks and policy research networks mentions Southern Voice on Post-MDGs under the heading of “Collective Action” on his blog, “On Think Tanks”.(http://onthinktanks.org/2013/04/23/looking-for-success-3-from-the-think-tank-initiative/) .
• Charles Kenny, Senior Fellow, Centre for Global Development (CGD), Washington DC referring Dr Deb’s recent presentation at CGD, highlights the necessity of the inputs from the Southern Voice on Post-MDGsinitiative in shaping MDGs Mark-II in his recent blog post in CGD website tilted “Southern Voices in the Post-2015 Debate”.  Many development experts have also engaged in the discussion in the comment section of the blog  (http://international.cgdev.org/blog/southern-voices-post-2015-debate).