Development after 2015

The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, has appointed his advisory panel for the Post 2015 Development Agenda. 2015 is a looming deadline for the UN because that is when the current Millennium Development Goals expire. Unfortunately many of them will go unmet, and the UN wants to regalvanize attention on key means to achieve sustainable development. The current progress report shows that good progress is being made on poverty, access for girls to eduction, , the fight against TB, and internet access. On the other hand, hunger remains an area where there is still a long way to go.
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/2012_Progress_E.pdf

It is noteworthy that the sole private sector representative on the panel is Paul Polman from Unilever, a food company. With global crop prices rising, it is likely hunger will remain and important part of the agenda. For the agriculture community, it will be important to keep farming as the cornerstone of addressing the hunger challenge.

The relationship between this process and the new process on Sustainable Development Goals, flowing out of Rio+20 must also be clarified. Can the UN really afford to have two sets of overarching goals? In my opinion, bringing these processes together is essential. Until the UN achieves a higher level of accomplishment against existing goals, it cannot effectively manage two separate processes and different goals across the breadth of its operations.

Co-Chairs

David Cameron, UK Prime Minister

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian president

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesian President

Panellists

Fulbert Géro Amoussouga (Benin) Heads Benin’s economic analysis unit of the president of the republic of Benin.

Vanessa Petrelli Corrêa (Brazil) President of the Institute for Applied Economic Research, which conducts research to support the design and implementation of governmental policies and development programmes in Brazil.

Yingfan Wang (China) Member of the secretary general’s MDG advocacy group and a career diplomat.

María Ángela Holguín (Colombia) Foreign minister of Colombia.

Gisela Alonso (Cuba) President of the Cuban agency of environment.

Jean-Michel Severino (France) Former director general of the French development agency.

Horst Köhler (Germany) President of Germany 2004-10.

Naoto Kan (Japan) Former prime minister of Japan. Now adviser to Japan’s technical committee on renewable energy.

Queen Rania of Jordan An advocate for Unicef, the UN children’s agency.

Betty Maina (Kenya) Chief executive of the Association of Manufacturers, one of Kenya’s leading business organisations.

Abhijit Banerjee (India) Professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Co-founder of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab.

Andris Piebalgs (Latvia) Commissioner for development, European Commission.

Patricia Espinosa (Mexico) Secretary of foreign affairs.

Paul Polman (Netherlands) Chief executive of Unilever.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (Nigeria) Minister of finance. Former managing director and vice-president at the World Bank.

Elvira Nabiullina (Russia) Economic adviser to Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president.

Graça Machel (South Africa) A member of the Elders, an independent group of global leaders who work on human rights.

Sung Hwan Kim (South Korea) Minister of foreign affairs and trade.

Gunilla Carlsson (Sweden) Minister for international development co-operation.

Emilia Pires (Timor-Leste) Minister of finance.

Kadir Topbas (Turkey) Mayor of Istanbul and expert in urban rehabilitation.

John Podesta (US) Chair of the Centre for American Progress.

Tawakel Karman (Yemen) Journalist, human rights activist and politician. Awarded Nobel peace prize for promoting women’s rights during the 2011 Yemeni uprising.

Amina Mohammed (ex officio) Special adviser to the UN secretary general on post-2015 development planning.