sustainable

Official Launch of the 2015 Global Assessment Report (GAR) on Disaster Risk Reduction

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savethedateMr. Meza-Cuadra opened the meeting by saying that sustainable development will not be sustainable without risk reduction. The Secretary-General proclaimed that sustainability starts on March 14th in Sendai, Japan, during the 3rd World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction. The increased number of natural disasters has cost the world roughly $3 billion each year. The poorest countries are hit hardest when disasters strike, and 90% of fatalities come from low- and middle-income countries. Mr. Maskrey described how the world is reaching a breaking point as 1.5 planets are needed to sustain the current consumptions of water resources and carbon output. Mr. Sareer spoke about how Maldives was ready to transition into a middle-income country; however, it took 10 years to rebuild what the 2004 tsunami destroyed. Food security, water sources, ecosystems, and economies are all at stake with climate change.

Mr. Nkwain mainly spoke about the vulnerability of developing countries. He also mentioned that the information that we have about risk prevention needs to be effectively utilized for it to be useful. Mr. Binger spoke about the Caribbean countries and stated that SIDS have very limited areas of development due to restrictions on land. Developmental assistance needs to focus more on SIDS, as they are the most vulnerable due to their small area and isolated nature. The final speaker was Mr. Mayer, whose main point centered around the need for the world to move towards a culture of disaster prevention. Disaster warning systems need to be relied upon more in order to prevent casualties and infrastructure damage. He finished the speech by stating that it is up to everyone in the room to help implement disaster risk reduction in the future.

Meeting: Official launch of the 2015 Global Assessment Report (GAR) on Disaster Risk Reduction (by the Secretary-General of the United Nations) (organized by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR))
Date & Location: Wednesday, 4 Februrary 2015, Dag Hammarskjöld Library Auditorium, United Nations Headquarters, New York
Speakers: Gustavo Meza-Cuadra, Permanent Representative of Peru to the UN; Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations Secretary-General; Andrew Maskrey, Coordinator of the United Nations Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk. Reduction (GAR); Ahmed Sareer, Permanent Representative of Maldives to the UN; Margaret Wahlstrom, Special Representative of the Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction; Stan Nkwain, United Nations Development Programme; Albert Binger,  Energy Science Advisor at Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre; Thomas Mayr-Harting, EU Head of Delegation to the United Nations
Written by WIT Representatives: Paige Stokols and Brian Lee
Edited by WIT Representative: Philip Bracey

Women and Climate Change

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This meeting discussed climate change and its relationship with women. Ms.Nusseibeh explained that women comprise up to 60% of the agricultural work force in some countries and farms can be devastated by drought and desertification. Women are also more vulnerable to violence when they are required to travel farther to gather essential supplies and during periods of forced migration. Mr. Sachs discussed areas where funding needed to be “scaled-up”. Examples included education, which he claimed was essential to women empowerment and sustainable development goals and clean energy, to mitigate the effects of climate change. Ms. Puri stated that empowering

women was essential to finding solutions to both gender equality and climate change. Climate change and extreme weather also has an effect on society, as conflict, often derived from gender inequality, is worsened by these environmental changes. For examples, in small island states, rising sea levels have caused forced migration, exacerbating social tensions in these regions. She also stated that the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka killed approximately 1 in 5 displaced women, nearly twice the amount of displaced men. Ms. Markham emphasized the need for women to be active in policymaking because it is necessary to mitigate climate change. To do this, the insecure land and tenure rights, obstructed access to national resources, the burden of domestic duty, and other social restrictions placed upon women need to be lifted in order to increase decision making within women and girls. Ms. Blomstrom continued upon this point, as she stressed the necessity of adequate legal framework to allow women to become empowered activists and leaders.

 

Title: Women, Peace, Security in the Context of Climate Change

Date/Location: Thursday, 15 January 2015; 13:15-14:45; Conference Room 4
Speakers: Lana Nusseibeh Permanent Representative of the United Arab Emirates to the United Nations; Susan Markham, Senior Coordinator for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment; Eleanor Blomstrom, Program Director for Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO); Lakshmi Puri, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women; Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Special Advisor to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Professor of Health Policy and Management and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University
Written By: Elise Freeman
Edited By: Modou Cham

Private Sector’s Current State of Play in the SDG Process

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masthead_resourcesDr Louise Kantrow opened the discussion by noting the paradigm transition from the MDGs to the SDGs, wherein the role of the private sector has grown. ICC coordinated the Global Business Alliance 2015, which brought together global and regional business organisations aimed at constructively engaging with the post 2015 process and the UN agencies. The key points from the private sector perspective are the following: effective governance, rule of law, and security are critical enablers to achieve the SDGs; poverty eradication involves economic growth and jobs creations; and therefore it is crucial to address the informal employment and low governance challenges arisen in many developing countries.

H.E. Jean-Francis Regis Zinsou recognised that the global environmental and social challenges should be addressed through mobilising private finance for SDGs, innovative and technologically advanced business models. There is a move in the approach of the private sector from maximising profits for shareholders to stakeholders and the planet should be considered a stakeholder. Ms Esin Mete, then addressed the importance of agriculture and rural development as primary drivers to address poverty reduction and food security.

Mr Vinicius Carvalho Pinheiro stated that 75 million young people are currently unemployed. It is imperative to not just address the quantity but the quality of jobs available. As economic growth does not automatically create jobs, the private sector is the core driver of jobs. He then addressed the critical need to create a safe environment for workers as every 15 seconds one worker is killed due to working accidents: making it a world epidemic.

Finally Ms Katharine Maloney underlined the fundamental beliefs of KPMG to explain their active participation in the consultations of the post 2015 agenda. First, they recognise the paradigm shift explained previously by Dr Louise Kantrow. Second profitability and developmental agenda are not mutually exclusive. Third, business and social values are inextricably linked. Fourth, the private sector can provide a lot more than money, for instance real ideas, innovation, technical know how and a lot more resources.

Meeting Title: Private Sector Briefing: Current State of Play in the SDG process
Speakers: Dr Louise Kantrow, ‎Permanent Representative to the United Nations at International Chamber of Commerce; H.E. Jean-Francis Regis Zinsou, Permanent Representative of Republic of Benin to the UN; Ms Esin Mete, Director General, IFA (International Fertilizer Industry Association); Mr Vinicius Carvalho Pinheiro, Deputy Director of the ILO Office for the United Nations; Ms Katharine Maloney, Director, Development and Exempt Organizations (DEO) Practice at KPMG LLP.
Date: 3 July 2014
Location: Conference Room 5, NLB, United Nations, New York.
Written by WIT Representative: Aslesha Kaur Dhillon

Second Meeting of the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development

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high_level_political_forum_on_sustainable_developmentThe discussion assembles a panel of eminent scientists, policy makers, as well as senior UN officials, who will address how science is instrumental in ensuring the integration of the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. The second meeting of the High Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development commenced at the United Nations. A panel discussion that aimed to monitor the SDGs, build an effective review mechanism and strengthen science and policy networks was conducted as part of the negotiations.

Mr. Nebojsa Nakicenovic opened the discussion by stating that the SDGs were an aspirational and ambitious goal but with the right scientific and technical analysis they could be achievable. He highlighted the following four areas of interest that are crucial in writing the Sustainable Development Report for the Post-2015 agenda: Investments into institutions and niche markets, enhancing human capacity, learning and technology, deployment of system diffusions and conducting science based multi-stakeholder assessments.

H.E Csaba Körösi echoed similar points raised by Mr. Nebojsa Nakicenovic and Mr. Alexander Roehrl and stated that the scientific community has been involved with the SDGs since its inception. Scientists have been mastering the information and substance and are guiding the Open Working Group (OWG). However, he highlighted three focus areas for the scientific community that would accelerate the progress of the OWG. One, help setting indicators. Two, help testing the coherence of the system and three, report on system transformation as a whole. He concluded by stating that is was crucial to know, through tangible parameters, how much progress has already been made.

Ms.Tanya Abrahamse summed up the panel discussion by stressing upon the importance of accessibility of information and data. She posited that scientific evaluation should be presented in a manner that could be easily understood by local populations, which in turn would empower them to act upon that evidence.

Title: “Strengthening science-policy links for reviewing progress on sustainable development”
Organiser: International Council for Science (ICSU); UN DESA; UNEP
Speakers: Gordon McBean, President, International Council for Science; Nebojsa Nakicenovic, International Institute for Applied System Analysis; Alexander Roehrl, Division for Sustainable Development, DESA; H.E.Csaba Körösi, Co-Chair of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals; Elliot Harris, Director, UNEP New York Office; Tanya Abrahamse, CEO, South African National Biodiversity Institute
Date: 30 June 2014
Location: Conference Room 5 (NLB), UN Headquarters
Written By WIT Representative: Apurv Gupta
Edited by WIT Representative: Aslesha Dhillon

High Level Political Forum: Harmonising Existing Measurement Efforts

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image001A meeting was convened to discuss plans to harmonise existing measurement efforts under the High Level Political Forum’s (HLPF’s) current review function. Chair of the panel, Mr. Ullah opened by highlighting the immense opportunity provided by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to coordinate and subsequently align the goals and measurement methods at the private, national, and international levels. Currently, 80% of the post-2015 SDGs do not have measurement mechanisms in place.

Ms. Beishem started the dialogue by giving context to the HLPF’s current review function. At this moment, the HLPF resolution mandates that reporting be voluntary, state-led, and provide a platform for partnerships. But to finalize the remainder of review effort, and to attempt designing a framework for all countries to follow, a few things must fall into place. They need an efficient review in limited number of meeting days, secretariat services for preparation and follow up, ways to integrate existing reviews and report, and financial funds for less developed countries.

Mr. Greenfield added to the panel by challenging the audience to imagine a world where societal and business priorities were aligned, one where the purpose of markets would be to deliver our highest human priorities. He argued that the first step is to empower nations to start adopting measurements and goals beyond simple GDP levels, which seems to be the assessment used to evaluate a country’s world standing. Mr. Betrazzi closed the discussion by highlighting three avenues through which alignment of the national, international, and corporate sectors can be achieved. First, technical work is necessary to increase the linkage in methodologies. Next, a political element to put pressure on the corporate world. Finally, raising awareness through the SDGs about the importance of accurate and efficient measurements.

Meeting Title: Harmonising existing measurement efforts under the HLPF’s review function
Speakers: Marianne Beisheim, Global Issues, SWP; Pietro Bertrazzi, Manager Policy and Advocacy, GRI; Chair Farooq Ullah, Executived Director, Stakeholder Forum; Oliver Greenfield, Convenor, Green Economy Coalition
Location: United Nations HQ, Conference Room C
Date: 30 June 2014
Written By WIT Representative: Zachary Halliday
Edited by WIT Representative: Aslesha Dhillon

New ways to provide food assistance

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ImageTo encourage innovative means to provide food assistance to regions in need of humanitarian aid, Ambassador Patriota convened a panel discussion on this matter. In doing so, the Ambassador highlighted the Brazilian application of cash transfer to implement the “Bolsa Familia” safety-net programme as a way to motivate families to send children to school and to clinic check-ups.

In the context of short-term action, Mr. Mogwanja highlighted the difference between direct provision of food aid and cash-transfer style food assistance, the latter being preferable as it is a more economically sustainable tool. Mr. Janz stated that cash-transfer is a viable form of food assistance, as it pinpoints to the problem of lack of purchasing power of disaster victims without having crippled the local agricultural market by flooding the market with relief food. Mr. Janz elaborated on the benefit of cash-transfer food assistance, stating that it gives disaster victims dignity by giving them choices in food and enhances efficiency of aid by reducing the logistical cost of transporting food aid. Ms. Souza stated how the World Food Programme implemented the cash-transfer in conjunction with local purchase of relief material to further enhance food assistance’s positive impact to the local economy, a point which Ambassador Boureima echoed when detailing the “Nigerien feeds Nigerien” initiative in his country.

Speaking on behalf of the donors, Ms. Fink-Hooijer stated that the donor community in general support the cash-transfer initiative, but adopts a wait-and-see attitude when it comes to the effectiveness of large-scale implementation in disaster relief. Ambassador Shearman echoed this point, and added that he hopes future cash-transfer can be implemented in form of cash handout instead of voucher to further reduce its distortion of the local market.

Meeting Title: Cash Transfers, Local Purchases and Social Safety-Nets: Bridging the Divide between Assistance and Development
Speakers: Martin Mogwanja, Deputy Executive Director, UNICEF; H.E. Ambassador Boubacar Boureima, Permanent Representative of Niger to the United Nations; Darana Souza, Programme Coordinator for World Food Programme; Udo K. Janz, Director of UNHCR Office in New York; Israel Klug, Project Coordinator of PAA Africa Programme; Minister Counsellor Nuria Mohammed, Permanent Mission of Ethiopia to the United Nations, H.E. Ambassador Antonio de Aguiar Patriota, Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations; Florika Fink-Hooijer, Policy Director of ECHO; Martin Shearman, Ambassador for Development and Human Rights, UK Department for International Development; H.E. Ambassador Michael Grant, Deputy Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations; Jordan Ryan, Assistant Administrator of UNDP; Scott Paul, Humanitarian Policy Advisor of OXFAM; Hansjoerg Strohmeyer, Chief of Policy Development and Studies Branch of UN OCHA
Location: Conference Room 5, United Nations HQ, New York
Date: 24 June 2014
Written By WIT representative: Harrison Chung
Edited by WIT representative: Sophia Griffiths-Mark 

 

Nutrition as an Input and an Outcome of Resilience

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The concept of resilience and its practical application in food security and nutrition, both in policy formation and implementation, has recently become a topical issue among humanitarian development communities.

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Today at the United Nations, a panel discussion on nutrition aimed to propose approaches and develop a concrete action plan that can be taken to strengthen resilience towards the root causes of malnutrition. Building upon the discussion and conclusions from the IFPRI 2020 conference held in Addis Ababa, the event aimed to provide insights for the preparation of the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) and the post-2015 developmental agenda. 

Chairperson, Sandra Aviles opened the discussion by highlighting the importance of understanding the term resilience not as jargon, but as a term that is practically defined as a tangible indicator that can help communities bridge the gap between short term goals and long term developmental agendas.

Mrs. Florika focused her address on locating target communities that are most vulnerable to malnutrition. She stated that, “children below the age of five and pregnant and lactating women were among those that are the most severe targets of hunger needs”. In response, ECHO and OCHA are developing a system to index risk factors, develop key indicators, and resilience markers and identify best practices to provide humanitarian assistance to these communities with maximum output. Mrs. Dolores highlighted natural disasters as another factor that threaten food security. Crises prone regions of developing countries are often ill equipped with coping up with natural disasters, and at times such disasters occur with little time gap which further threatens food security and enhances health risks.

In conclusion, Mrs. Charlotte Dufour, drawing upon a programme conducted with ECHO that addressed the challenge of access to land as an underlying causes of malnutrition, highlighted some of the practical problems that schemes faced when tested on ground. She posited that institutional silos existed across and within institutions that hinder the establishment of a common language of indicators. Furthermore, while institutions possess technical skills they lack the organizational and planning skills that are required to initiate programmes in countries with fragile governments, weak leadership and high levels of corruption.

 

Meeting Title: “Nutrition as an input and an outcome of resilience”
Speakers: Sandra Aviles; Senior Liason Officer, Programme Development & Humanitarian Affairs, FAO; Mrs. Florika Fink-Hooijer, Director for Strategy, Policy and International Cooperation, ECHO; Mrs. Dolores Rio, Nutrition Specialist, UNICEF; Mrs. Charlotte Dufour, Nutrition Officer, FAO; Mrs. Muriel Calo, Senior Food Security & Livelihood Advisor, Action Against Hunger
Location: United Nations HQ, Conference Room 7 (NLB), New York 
Date: 23 June 2014
Written By WIT Representative: Apurv Gupta
Edited by WIT representative: Sophia Griffiths-Mark 

Acceleration Sustainable Energy Deployment through Support for Energy Innovation

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On the first day of the Sustainable Energy for All Forum, the second session focused on catalysing investment through innovative business models.

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Mr. Zindler, a representative of the Bloomberg team, started by introducing his field, which focuses on new energy technologies and investment in clean energy. Mr Zindler highlighted the current challenges for policymakers, especially in developing countries. Firstly, it is difficult to find the appropriate level of support for renewables, given the uncertainty over costs. Allocating support costs equitably, integrating renewables into the grid and preparing for cost parity are equally difficult. Therefore, he would like to come up with ideas about promoting innovation for policies and financials, efficiently in the near future.

Mr. Sarkar followed by highlighting the current challenges in terms of energy efficiency implementation in the developing world since different countries use different financial instruments. Therefore, he introduced three implementation models to tackle the challenges and financing gap categorized under the Energy Efficiency Fund (EE Fund), namely the public model, private model and public private partnerships (PPPs). He emphasized that PPPs has a possibility of bringing in new sources of financing for funding public infrastructure and service needs. Some countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Korea and India are already implementing the EE Fund. This fund would be able to support energy efficiency, renewable energy and promote economic development and energy security.

Mr. Roders, who moderated the meeting, concluded the session with an example – introducing the innovative programming for climate change, which is a performance-based financing for projects and sectors. One of the advantages of this programming is that it catalyses the engagement of the private sector, including PPS, risk-mitigation and structured financing tools, global certification, standards programs and SME Small Grant Program.

 

Meeting Title: Accelerating Sustainable Energy Deployment through Support for Innovation
Speakers: David Rodgers, Senior Climate Change Specialist, Climate and Chemicals, GEF; Ethan Zindler, Head of Policy Analysis, Bloomberg New Energy Finance ; Ashok Sarkar, Senior Energy Specialist, World Bank
Location: UN Headquarters, Trusteeship Council
Date: 4 June 2014
Written By WIT representative: Samantha Kong
Edited by WIT representative: Sophia Griffiths-Mark 

 

Together we’ve got the Power

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Why SE4ALL Needs Civil Society

The first annual Sustainable Energy for All Forum was held at the headquarters of United Nations, New York. This session, moderated by Mr. Bros, the director of the Global Business & Biodiversity Programme of IUCN, reiterated the needs for civil society in charting the way forward to reach goals and targets on renewables and energy efficiency.

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The first speaker, Ms. Leopold, discussed capacity building, access to information were challenges faced during the mobilization of actions by Civil Society Organization (CSO). Clear commitment and transparent guidelines agreed among governments, United Nations, multilateral development banks to CSO participation, capacity building of CSO through inclusive participation and access to timely and meaningful information were three key pointers she raised to achieve a more meaningful participation by civil society.

Mr. Riley from WWF pointed out that there was a lack of social structure to promote civil society engagement, which impeded goals and energy policies from achieving. Right now, CSO had started to puttogether platforms in engaging all stakeholders by means of toolkits and roadmaps, so that messages can be shared and negotiated.

Ms. Zuniga carried on by saying that civil society was the voice representing local population, and it had the power to bring their own learning and experiences into discussion. Ms. Edjekumhene, executive director of KITE, cited an example of Guana being the first country to develop a CSO engagement action plan to identify energy use objectives.

The last speaker, Ms. Allam, believed sustainability was all about providing an enabling environment, but prior to that, required poverty reduction, energy and resources management. She emphasised that people need to change their norms to eradicate poverty and create a zero-carbon environment. Lastly, she envisioned a sustainable world where different genders, ethnic groups and marginalised communities can have affordable and reliable access for energy.

Meeting Title: Together we’ve got the power: why SE4ALL needs civil society
Speakers: Mr. Gerard Bros, Director, Global Business & Biodiversity Programme, ICUN; Mr. Aaron Leopold, Global Energy Advocate for Practical Action, Mr. Dan Riley, Lead Specialist Renewable Energy Policy of WWF US; Ms. Mariam Mohamed Adballah Abdelhafiz Allam, Arab Youth Climate Movement/IndyACT; Ms. Lizeth Zuniga, Director of Renewables Association; Ms Ishmael Edjekumhene, Executive Director of KITE
Location: United Nations HQ, Trusteeship Council
Date: 5 June 2014
Written by WIT representative: Tracy Lau

Private and Public Sector Collaboration for Renewable Energy Solutions

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During the Sustainable Energy For All Forum a side event was held on forming partnerships between the private and public sector in order to find renewable energy solutions. Beginning the discussion, Ms. Eibs-Singer spoke about opportunities for the public and private sector to collaborate using public sector instruments at the policy level and private sector investment at the market level in order to invest in renewable energy.

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A more direct integration of the public and private sector is necessary for successful renewable energy projects to take off. However, Ms. Eibs-Singer pointed out that a potential problem in working together is how much slower progress can occur in the public sphere than in the private , and that the two need to reconcile this problem in order to effectively work together.

Mr. Ford, the Managing Director of Accenture (one of the world’s largest consulting and technology companies), then spoke about Accenture’s nexus with civil society, corporations, and donors, and how these partnerships can be used to find renewable energy solutions. Mr. Ford also mentioned Accenture’s work in renewable energy, and how this relates to education, health, and capacity building for development.

The Rockefeller Foundation gave a statement about the need to build resilience for disadvantaged communities and cities, and to make economies more inclusive; allowing more opportunities for participation. The key to this, he said, is energy access from renewable sources. Access to energy is necessary for withstanding climate change, health pandemics, and for having access to information, and is also fundamental for participation in the modern economy. Government capacity, the skills of the private sector, as well as money from funders is needed to find renewable energy solutions.

Mr. Fast then followed up this statement with an example of Accenture’s project in Northern Uganda, which helps local villagers use solar energy more efficiently. Accenture created this project with the help of local schools and businesses. To close, Mr. Rubin a professor at University of Pennsylvania, talked about his project in Zimbabwe, which, with the help from universities, private sector donations, and public sector infrastructure, produced an innovative solution to efficiently refrigerate vaccines for children by using the electric infrastructure from already existing cell phone towers to power the refrigerators.

Meeting: Energy Access for Development Impact: How Can the Private and Public Sector Collaborate on Renewable Energy Solutions?
Speakers: Ms. Christine Eibs-Singer; Senior Advisor, SE4ALL; Mr. Roger Ford, Managing Director, Accenture Development Partnerships; Mr. Zia Khan, Vice President for Initiatives and Strategy, The Rockefeller Foundation; Mr. Scott Fast, Executive Director, Accenture Foundation; Mr. Harvey Rubin, Professor of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania and Director, Energize the Chain
Location: United Nations HQ, New York, Conference Room A
Date: 4 June 2014
Written By WIT representative: Marli Kasdan