It has been more than four months since the Think Tank Initiative (TTI) Exchange in Cape Town on 18-20 June 2012. You may recall that at Cape Town we had a number of very interesting Roundtables on “Hot Topics” and one of them had been on the theme “Post-MDG”. Twenty participants of the “Post-MDG” Roundtable decided to take the discussion forward by launching an initiative styled as “Southern Voice on Post-MDG International Development Goals”. CPD was entasked to prepare a Concept Note in this regard and explore funding to underwrite the proposed initiative.

 

In view of the above, a proposal titled “Post-MDG (2015) International Development Goals: Perspectives of the Southern Think Tanks” was prepared and was submitted by CPD (Bangladesh) to TTI seeking support under its Matching Fund Facility. IPS (Colombo), CEDRES (Burkina Faso), SPDC (Pakistan), IPAR (Senegal), REPOA (Tanzania) and NCAER (India) associated themselves with the submission of the proposal. We are pleased to note that TTI has rated highly our proposal on Southern Voice on Post-MDG and has agreed to co-underwrite the first phase of the proposed programme with Matching funds.

 

In order to take the initiative to the next level, we would now need to develop an agenda and a work plan of the “Southern Voice on Post-MDG”. To this end, an Expert Group Meeting is being convened in Dhaka on 11-13 January 2013. Besides the interested members of the TTI network, UN officials and a number of experts having demonstrated expertise on MDG-related issues will be invited to the meeting. The meeting will define the larger set of works to be undertaken by the initiative and reflect on funding possibilities for the fuller programme.

 

As a part of the preparation for the upcoming Dhaka EGM, a Webinar has been arranged, with the support of TTI (using WebEx), on 22 November 2012 at 6.30 am EST (Ottawa). At the planned Webinar, Dr Bhattacharya will introduce the concept and activities proposed under the “Southern Voice on Post-MDG”, a high profile speaker will be invited to speak on the subject. The Webinar will allow to announce our initiative to a larger audience. An advisory regarding participation at the Webinar will be circulated soon.

 

In addition, TTI has offered to create a virtual platform for the participating think tanks on post-MDG issues and to provide a mechanism of interaction among the engaged participants. A dedicated web page on the initiative is being constructed on CPD’s website (www.cpd.org.bd). The proposed Dhaka meeting in January 2013 can thereby provide a chance for participants to identify key requirements for the web platform for serving wider interest.

 

You will soon be invited to send in papers and publications (having relevance to the post-MDG debates) that you and your institute have already worked on/are working on currently. This could be the first activity of this collaborative effort.

 

This is an opportunity to thank all who have enthusiastically participated in conceiving the programme at the TTI Exchange in Cape Town including the TTI colleagues for their contribution in mentoring the incipient process. Gratitude is extended to CPD colleagues for their support and cooperation in this regard.

 

We have already received many expectant queries about our interesting initiative and the expectation is growing. What is now necessary is to give substance to the “Southern Voice” and make it louder.

 

Looking forward to your valuable contributions.

 

Debapriya Bhattacharya, PhD

Distinguished Fellow

Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD)

Tel/Fax: +8802 9134438

E-mail: debapriya.bh@gmail.com

Website: www.cpd.org.bd

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