German positions on the post-2015 global agenda for sustainable development
3 What do the concepts of universal goals and common but differentiated responsibility mean for the new
global agenda?
The High-Level Panel Report on the post-2015 agenda issued in May 2013 stated that several ‘transformative shifts’ were needed in order to improve human wellbeing within the boundaries of the Earth’s ecosystems.
According to the panel, these shifts are a universal requirement for which policy changes need to happen in North and South.
If the goals of the new post-2015 agenda are to be universal, they will have to satisfy several criteria. First of all, the goals need to speak to both poor and rich countries. Relevance to the lives of people in all countries requires a careful selection of priorities, and a careful combination of global and national targets. A poverty goal, for example, which combines the abolition of extreme poverty with the reduction of the number of persons living under the relative poverty line of each country, is one example (see SDSN 2013).
Second, the goals need to include targets that are ambitious (and reachable) for all signatories. This means that the level of ambition should not only be defined by improving the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable today in absolute terms, as in the MDGs, but also those of people who are poor in relative terms (thus including inequality challenges in rich countries and rising powers). Quantification of targets needs to allow for flexibility, as conditions in UN member states are very heterogeneous, on the one hand and on the other, quantification needs to refer to a common global metric where it makes sense (as in numbers of extreme poor or in greenhouse gas emissions). Third, goals and targets need to address policy interdependence and create incentives for reducing the negative transboundary impacts of domestic economic action or policies. They need to make clear that a global agenda requires all states to contribute to implementation by designing adequate domestic policies and by developing and implementing improved international laws and regulations.
Such a radically new agenda for global cooperation requires trust, which is a scarce good at multilateral level today. Building trust requires that stronger players, such as OECD countries and rising powers, make clear offers early in the process: i) offers in terms of domestic policy changes which contribute to poverty alleviation and global public goods; ii) offers in terms of supporting a list of priorities which caters for the more immediate
Imme Scholz
German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)
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social and economic needs of poor countries and combines them with the most important issues of global environmental change and global economic governance; and iii) offers in terms of financial contributions to poor countries in order to advance their domestic agendas and help them contribute to global public goods. The post-2015 agenda will be a non-binding document; its relevance will depend on the wisdom, strength and willingness of national governments to accept its guidance.
The position paper by the German Federal government does not feature such details yet. It states that one key characteristic of the global partnership it advocates for are “universally applicable goals” which build on
mutual respect and shared values, i.e. all countries are responsible for both the goals and for achieving them (developing countries, industrialised countries and emerging economies) and for all policy areas, while ensuring that national realities, capacities and levels of development are taken into account and national policies and priorities are respected (GoG 2014, 2).
How does this concept of universal goals play out in the four strategic issue areas and exemplary goals which are listed in the German position paper?
The four strategic issue areas comprise:
1. “eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, secure a life in dignity, 2. preserve the natural resource base and ensure its sustainable use, 3. achieve the creation of decent jobs and adequate income through
ecologically sound growth,
4. strengthen good governance, anchor gender equality, protect and foster human rights, secure peace” (GoG 2014, 2).
These general focus areas are well chosen for elaborating a list of globally relevant goals, and there are several examples of goals which would have beneficial transboundary effects if they were translated into ambitious domestic action. A general weakness of the German position paper is that it does not explicitly show the implications of the goals and targets for domestic action. But one can draw one’s own conclusions. One example is the exemplary goal on hunger. It reads “end hunger and ensure food security and good nutrition” and includes targets on achieving a “land and soil degradation neutral world” and on reducing “by 50 % worldwide post-harvest loss and food waste” by 2030 (GoG 2014, 3-4). For Germany, these goals and targets could be relevant in two ways: first, that Germany supports
policies and measures in developing countries which pursue these goals, and second, that Germany takes measures for reducing land and soil degradation at home (i.e. by supporting a European directive on soil conservation) and for reducing food waste in retail trade and households. A 50 %-target would be ambitious for Germany, and gathering political support for a European soil conservation from the agricultural ministry and the farmers’ lobby would require considerable political effort.
But there is also room for improvement: In some areas, the goals are formulated in such a way that they remain irrelevant for Germany. The exemplary goal on poverty reduction reads “leaving no one behind – end extreme poverty” and includes targets such as “by 2030, end extreme income poverty (1.25$ PPP/day)” and “establish and maintain national floors of social protection comprising basic social security guarantees according to ILO recommendation No. 202” (GoG 2014, 3). But no reference is made to poverty in Germany. According to a report of German welfare NGOs, 12 to 16 million people in Germany are living under the national poverty line. Including them in the universal goal with a reference to national poverty lines (as is done in the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Action Agenda and Indicator Report) would be a clear sign of strong political will towards meaningful universal goals.
A thorough exercise that would give the numbers for all areas of action for Germany is still missing; the Center for American Progress recently published a paper which gives those numbers for the United States with regard to the illustrative goals listed by the High-Level Panel report (Norris / Elgin-Cossart / Dunning 2014). This paper shows that poverty and hunger are problems in the United States, too, with 15 percent of the population living under the national poverty line. It does not, however, cover the global impacts of current and renewed domestic policies in the United States.
Universal goals, if defined clearly enough and with high levels of ambition, could make the post-2015 global agenda politically more attractive for those groups and political forces interested in fostering international cooperation for sustainable development. But at the same time, this departure from conventional forms of North-South cooperation can lead to mistrust.
How can the poor countries be assured that enhanced engagement for the preservation of global public goods will not be to the detriment of poverty reduction in their territories? The G77 has reacted to this risk by emphasising the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective
Imme Scholz
German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)
162
capabilities (CBDR-RC), which is part of the Rio Declaration 1992 and also of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The German position paper does not mention CBDR-RC. It makes reference to
shared responsibility for global wellbeing through the protection of global public goods and the creation of structural framework conditions that are conducive to development” and to the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Millennium Declaration and the outcome document of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (GoG 2014, 2).
Behind this statement is the claim that the principle of CBDR-RC only applies to burden-sharing for the provision of global environmental goods, but not to the whole agenda of international cooperation. However, the argument for combining social, economic and environmental issues in one agenda is exactly grounded on the interdependence between them. To separate the issues again when it comes to funding is therefore not very convincing. Germany as well as the European Union should revise their positions and come to a more comprehensive proposal.
The main problem, however, is that public financial transfers from rich to poor countries are a very limited source: Domestic financial resources grew much more in the last two decades than official development assistance (ODA); and public budgets in many OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, especially in Europe, are faced with heavy constraints as they are still suffering under the impacts of the combined crisis of financial markets and the euro, and economic stagnation or low growth rates associated with very high unemployment rates. Under such conditions, it is difficult to maintain, let alone increase budget lines for development cooperation.
The United Kingdom constitutes a rare exception as it has managed to achieve the 0.7 % target for its ODA budget. Unfortunately, a similarly strong political will to achieve this aim is not visible in Germany or other European countries. It has to be seen, however, that with regard to the post-2015 agenda, the United Kingdom defends a rather conservative position:
it wants to maintain the focus of the agenda basically within the MDG framework, without new departures towards global collective problems and renewed action.
The common challenge for rich countries, rising powers and the upper middle-income countries is to promote global sustainable development by changing patterns and flows of investment, production and consumption.
This is an area where cooperation towards joint learning processes in order to accelerate change is very much needed and likely to bring about rapid progress. Such cooperation, however, requires mutual interest and joint funding beyond what we have now in the aid sector.
The German position paper states that the German government
is willing to take on the responsibility associated with (the Global) Partnership, but expects all other members of the UN to do the same.
Emerging economies, in particular, must assume new responsibility as part of the post-2015 agenda (GoG 2014, 2).
From my view, making one’s own offer of taking on more responsibility dependent on the willingness of others to do the same would weaken the German position. Emerging economies are already offering increased South-South cooperation as a complementary instrument for international cooperation. At least in the field of climate and energy policy, emerging economies have also adopted laws and programmes which set targets for emission reductions. These are signs for their taking on more responsibility.
The answer to the second question is that universal goals should unite all countries around common priorities in order to achieve transformational change towards inclusive and sustainable development for present and future generations. How responsibility will be shared is not yet clear.