Tuesday, May 6, 2008

A Roadmap to CSD-17

UN meetings – such as the CSD - are often very issue and policy specific, however, they do not occur in isolation of one another. Here I would like to offer you a brief overview of how this year’s CSD relates to the rest of the UN’s development agenda over the coming year through CSD-17, which will be the policy year.

By: Zak Bleicher, United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service (UN-NGLS)

First, this year’s CSD is particularly timely as the world is now facing a global food crisis. The Secretary-General has been active on this issue and has been calling for governments to respond to the World Food Programme’s call for an additional US$500 million in emergency funding to cope with the crisis as well as naming a High-level Task Force on the issue which will be headed up by Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes in New York and Senior UN System Influenza Coordinator David Nabarro in Geneva. Also, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) will host a High-level Conference from 3-5 June on the theme “Food Security, Climate Change and Bio-Energy” in Rome.

Taking place just before the Rome meeting is a High-level Policy Dialogue on the theme, "Coping with Today's Global Challenges in the Context of the UNCCD (UN Convention to Combat Desertification) Strategy." The Dialogue will be held in Bonn, Germany, on 27 May 2008 and will have an impact on discussions at CSD-17 relating to desertification.

The 2005 World Summit produced a number of reforms for the UN system, among them were two reforms designed to strengthen the role of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), which the CSD reports to. These two new functions of ECOSOC are the ‘Annual Ministerial Review’ (AMR) and the ‘Development Cooperation Forum’ (DCF). Both of these events will take place in conjunction with the High-level Segment of ECOSOC (30 June – 3 July).

The AMR is intended to assess progress made towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the implementation of the other goals and targets agreed at the major UN conferences and summits over the past 15 years and to contribute to scaling-up and accelerating action to realize the UN’s development agenda, by serving as a global high-level forum with broad-based participation, where lessons learned are exchanged and successful practices and approaches that merit scaling-up are identified.

This year’s AMR, which will be held on 2-3 July 2008 at UN Headquarters in New York, will focus on "Implementing the internationally agreed goals and commitments in regard to sustainable development".

The DCF is expected to exert a positive influence on the international development cooperation system by bringing together all the relevant actors to engage in a dialogue on key policy issues affecting the quality and impact of development cooperation. The Forum will discuss issues relating to effectiveness and coherence – and will provide policy guidance and recommendations on how to improve international development cooperation.

Participants will include representatives from developing and developed countries, including bilateral development agencies, UN system organizations, World Bank, IMF, OECD, regional development banks as well as civil society and the private sector.

The first biennial Development Cooperation Forum will take place at UN Headquarters, New York, on 30 June - 1 July 2008. The goal of the Forum will be to position the United Nations Economic and Social Council as a principal forum for global dialogue and policy review on the effectiveness and coherence of international development cooperation.

Taking place the day before the opening of the General Debate in the General Assembly, on 22 September, the General Assembly will convene a meeting on the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Given the timing of the meeting, Member States are expected to participate at either the Head of State or Ministerial level. Moreover, it is expected that there will be a Ministerial Declaration as its outcome. Given the subject, this document will be very important leading into CSD-17 next year.

Just three days later, on 25 September, another High-level event will take place in New York, this time on the mid-point of the achievement of the MDGs. This meeting is intended to not only review progress of their implementation, but to also generate support and motivate greater action toward their achievement.

The exact programme and level of civil society participation in both of these events is, as yet, unclear. We at NGLS will keep you informed as information becomes available.

From 29 November to 2 December the International Follow-up Conference on Financing for Development will be held in Doha, Qatar and hosted by the Qatari government. This meeting will review the Monterrey Consensus which was adopted by governments in 2002 in Monterrey, Mexico. This is significant as the Monterrey Consensus addresses development financing issues under six themes: domestic resource mobilization, mobilization of foreign resources, international trade, development assistance, external debt and systemic issues of global governance with the aim of achieving the internationally agreed development goals adopted during the previous decade, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

There will be a civil society forum in conjunction with the official meeting and there are several opportunities for civil society to participate in this process. Visit our website to subscribe to our newsletter ‘The Road to Doha’ and to learn more.

Finally, there will be the Intergovernmental Preparatory Meeting (IPM) for CSD-17 that will take place on 23-27 February 2009.

This is a lot of information and it is not an exhaustive list of relevant and important meetings between now and CSD-17. And just because you can’t attend all of these meetings doesn’t mean you can’t influence their outcomes - you can meet with relevant ministries in your national capitol or participate in relevant national processes, should they be in place.

For more information please get in touch us at NGLS or come by our office while you are here in New York. ngls@un.org