Development agenda beyond 2015

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have served as a shared framework for global action and cooperation on development since they were adopted in 2000. With less than three years to the deadline, significant progress has been made towards achieving these goals. Meanwhile, the UN is now working closely with different international stakeholders to ensure a sustainable development path beyond 2015.

To support this effort, the UN Secretary-General has taken several initiatives by establishing the UN System Task Team on the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda, a High-level Panel of Eminent Persons and by appointing his own Special Advisor on Post-2015 Development Planning.

The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) is fully engaged in promoting and supporting the emergence of a solid and ambitious post-2015 development agenda.

UN System Task Team on the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda

The UN System Task Team was established by the UN Secretary-General in January 2012 to support system-wide preparations for the post-2015 UN development agenda. It assembles over 60 UN entities and agencies and international organizations and is jointly chaired by DESA and UNDP. The Task Team provides analytical inputs, expertise and outreach to the discussion about the post-2015 development agenda.

It presented its first report on the post-2015 UN development agenda to the Secretary-General in June 2012. Titled Realizing the Future We Want for All, the report lays out the Task Team’s main recommendations for a development agenda beyond 2015. It calls for an integrated policy approach to ensure inclusive economic development, inclusive social development and environmental sustainability within a development agenda that responds to the aspirations of all people for a world free of want and fear. The report will serves as a reference for further broader and inclusive consultations on the post-2015 development agenda.

The report Realizing the Future We Want for All also informs the work of the High-level Panel on Post-2015, which was launched in July 2012. The Panel will help to build political consensus on the vision for a post-2015 UN development agenda and will promote the engagement of all stakeholders in the post-2015 deliberations. The Panel will submit its report to the Secretary General with recommendations on the post-2015 development agenda at the end May 2013.

Sustainable Development Goals

One of the main outcomes of the Rio+20 Conference was the agreement by member States to develop a set of sustainable development goals (SDGs) that could be a useful tool for pursuing focused and coherent action on sustainable development. The Rio+20 outcome provides that the process of developing the SDGs should be coordinated and coherent with the processes to consider the post-2015 development agenda. A 30-member open working group of the General Assembly is tasked with submitting a proposal for sustainable development goals for consideration by the sixty-eighth Assembly (2013-2014). Technical support to the GA open working group will be provided by an inter-agency technical support team, functioning under the aegis of the UN System Task Team on the post-2015 UN development agenda.

National and global thematic consultations

The UN Development Group has launched a project to support the consultations on the post-2015 agenda. National consultations to engage stakeholders in around 100 developing countries are being planned for 2012-13.

These national consultations will be complemented by eleven thematic consultations which are currently underway. Jointly organized by various UN entities and with support from Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and other international organizations, the thematic consultations will help guide thinking on how to include emerging and pressing issues in the post-2015 development agenda. DESA is fully engaged in the thematic consultations with active contributions from several divisions.

The eleven thematic consultations are:

• Conflict and Fragility
• Education
• Environmental Sustainability
• Governance
• Growth and employment
• Health
• Hunger, food and nutrition security
• Inequalities
• Population Dynamics
• Energy
• Water

Committee for Development Policy (CDP)

The Committee for Development Policy, which is a subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council, provides inputs and independent advice on emerging cross-sectoral development issues. Members of CDP have also been working on conceptual issues around the post-2015 development agenda. In June 2012, the committee published a policy note on the UN Development Strategy Beyond 2015, followed by several DESA Working Papers on the post-2015. Additional working papers from the CDP and further analytical inputs to post-2015 thinking will be forthcoming.

Accelerating progress towards the MDGs: options for sustained and inclusive growth and issues for advancing the UN development agenda beyond 2015

In the outcome document of the High-level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Member States requested the Secretary-General to report annually on progress in the implementation of the MDGs and to make recommendations for further steps to advance the UN development agenda beyond 2015. In a subsequent resolution 65/10, the General Assembly requested the Secretary-General to include an analysis of and policy recommendations on sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth for accelerating poverty eradication and achievement of the MDGs in his annual report.

The second annual report was published in September 2012 and is available in all six official UN languages through the Official Document System of the United Nations (ODS).