We as Slovak NGDO Platform are glad to announce
that Bratislava International Roundtable: Sustainable Development Goals -
Opportunities and Challenges was successfully realised in the beginning of
September 2016 after several months of preparations. It has been one of the
important activities of Media4Development project, and we believe it
will contribute to more effective and efficient implementation of SDGs mostly
at the national, but also at the international levels.
Bratislava Roundtable conference was organised
by the Slovak NGDO Platform under the auspice of the Slovak Presidency in the Council
of the European Union. It took place in Bratislava on September 5th 2016. Altogether
58 participants, including policy makers, media representatives, civil
society representatives, private sector representatives and academics from the Czech
Republic, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, United Kingdome and other countries were discussing
the very actual agenda related to drafting and implementation of the Agenda
2030 at national levels overlapping to global area.
The core idea behind the roundtable was related to
the fact that the current UN global development agenda can only be
reached if it is adapted to the country policies. Ultimately, action must
come from the country level. But what is the situation in project countries? What
are the best practices and what lessons can be learned from each other?
Structure
of the roundtable was as follows:
Welcoming address to the participants was given by Mr.
Matej Dostal, the First Secretary of the Permanent Delegation of the Slovak
Republic to the OECD in Paris. He spoke about the importance and
specificity of the new Agenda 2030 and the need to build intersectoral partnerships both locally and
globally in order to reach sustainable development of the world and to make
SDGs the centre of gravity.
Afterwards
the roundtable was divided into three discussion rounds:
- Reducing inequalities between countries (Linking sustainable development with ODA).
- How can we shape SDGs coordination systems that are effective and participatory?
- Thinking about policy coherence for sustainable development (PCSD): What mechanisms and abilities do we have at the national level?
1.
Reducing inequalities between countries (Linking sustainable development with
ODA)
Ending extreme poverty requires world leaders to
tackle the growing gap between the richest and the rest which has trapped
hundreds of millions of people in a life of poverty, hunger and sickness.
Although ODA remains a crucial part of fighting against poverty and countries
should fulfil their ODA obligation, to use ODA effectively and ensure that it
is aligned with national priorities and policies, more needs to be done.
Opening presentation named Widening gap between the richest and the rest was given by Mrs. Stanislava Buchowska, Oxfam
International.
While speaking about rising inequality and its
social and economic impacts - “62 richest people own as much as the poorest
half of the population, which is 3,6 billion people. And those people are
mostly living in developing countries. The richest 1% of the people is now
wealthier than the rest of the world… There is something wrong in the way our
economies work.” - she has also strongly criticized global tax practices
and tax havens as one of the undermining obstacles in reaching sustainable
development. At the same time Buchowska has expressed her stand that in
order to allow for reaching sustainable development, civil society has to be
deeply involved into the process, along with the whole variety of
cross-sectoral stakeholders, including private sector and academia.
Following this presentation, the round of
stakeholders presented their positions and tried to bring answer to the set of suggested
questions:
- What is the role of ODA in reducing inequalities between and within countries?
- What is your country´s role in reducing global inequality through SDGs?
- How should the EU revise its development policy to address global inequalities in line with the 2030 Agenda?
Mr. Michal Kaplan (CZ), Director of Czech Development Agency (CzDA)
The Czech Republic is now in process of
preparing the new strategy for official development assistance and also new
generation of country strategic papers (that will be done jointly with partner
countries and in coordination with other donors) so we will already integrate
SDGs into this process, we will reduce the number our partner countries from
our 10 partner countries at the moment to just 6 partner countries. Half of
these partner countries are LDCs: Ethiopia, Zambia and Cambodia, the other half
are middle income countries in Europe where we feel that we have special added
value. We have also set 5 broad thematic priorities for our ODA that broadly
follow the pillars of sustainable development.
The most interesting question about developing
the new EU consensus on development will be whether the EU will move from
considering development cooperation as a technical policy to a more
political tool. We all understand bilaterally that the development assistance
is a tool of our foreign policy. Is the EU development policy part of the
EU foreign policy? Does the EU even have a common foreign policy and if
so, is the EU willing to shape the developing cooperation as a tool of its
foreign policy?
Ms. Kaili Terras (EE), Director, Development Co-operation and
Humanitarian Aid Division at Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
We are a small country but we do our best
share. We have a development cooperation strategy, our main partners are
mostly eastern-partnership countries, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, and then the
only LDC Afghanistan. The main character of our development cooperation is
technical support. SDGS are universal and also in Estonia we have quite many
challenges, we see inequality to tackle also at home.
Talking about tax evasions and tax heavens,
somehow the governments of poor countries are missing in the picture.
Governments must be accountable to the people also in the poor countries.
Mr. Saulins Kalvelis (LT), Counsellor, Development Cooperation Department,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania
ODA used in the smart way could mobilize additional resources and that way finance sustainable development. We can fulfil the ambitious Agenda 2030 and reduce the inequality between countries if we put our joined efforts and common responsibility of developing countries.
The Agenda 2030 should be based on real partnerships, avoiding of the old North/South or donor/recipient divisions.
Ms. Madara Silina (LV), Third Secretary of Development Cooperation Policy
Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia
We have been working already for really long time to develop a new
development cooperation strategy for the next 5 years which basically stresses
that all development cooperation is aimed at implementing the 2030 Agenda and particularly
focusing on our 6 partner countries. The particular priority is that we see we
have a comparative advantage to work effectively together with other donors.
So this is what we are focusing on now and the main priority is we work on good
governance and justice, participatory democracy and entrepreneurship and
export, conflict prevention and peace and security. we have put information of
the society in Latvia on, because the new agenda is also about new sustainable
consumption, it is not about North and South but also about individuals being
responsible and being able to affect change.
Ms.
Inese Vaivare (LV), Director
of Latvian Platform for Development Cooperation (LAPAS)
SDGs are not national that they are global. We should open the civil society space for people to help people to work and we have to be very much aware of what we do in our countries influences the situation in the whole world.
Ms. Zuzana Letková (SK), Director, Slovak Agency for International Development
Cooperation
Starting from this year we have adopted a new
law on official development assistance allowing us to create more demand driven
activities, projects and programs, and to use new financial and mechanism tools
for providing official development assistance. In my opinion a big problem is that among 10 countries where we provide
our help, only one is in the list of the least developed countries, it is Afghanistan.
All the others are middle income countries. So for the next period we started
to prepare a new mid-term strategy, which will start I guess next year 2017. We
should also look at this challenge and maybe reduce the number of middle income
countries and increase the number of the least developed countries.
2. How can we shape SDGs coordination systems that
are effective and participatory?
For the SDGs to be reached, everyone needs to do
their part: governments, the private sector, civil society and common people.
Ultimately, action must come from the country level and needs to be
well-coordinated and monitored. How far we have come to build up the structures
to ensure effective implementation?
There were two opening presentations at the
beginning of second discussion round. They were given by Mrs. Annika
Lindblom from Ministry of the Environment of Finland and head of
multi-stakeholder Finnish National Commission on Sustainable Development, and
by Mrs. Eili Lepik, Chief Adviser and National Contact for Sustainable
Development, Estonian Government Office, Strategy Unit.
Annika Lindblom was in her presentation named The Finnish example: Making the SDG implementation a
truly participatory process with a bottom-up approach speaking about Finnish “efforts to involve, to inspire
and to include the broad range of different actors into the national effort to
implement the global agenda.” She has presented, and using video also exemplified ways how do various stakeholders
coordinate and build partnerships in order to reach common goals. She has also
mentioned the fact that Finland is one of 22 countries which has already
presented its SDGs national voluntary review to the UN and High Level Political
Forum (HLPF) in July 2016.
But Finland was not the only representative of 22
more successful countries present in Bratislava. Another presentation, named
Estonia among first nations reported to the UN High Level
Panel: Kick-start in SDGs implementation, lessons from monitoring the SDGs, given by Eili Lepik, has introduced to
participants Estonian good example. Lepik has shown the approach which Estonia
has taken, leading to its early adoption of its own national voluntary review,
at the same time as Finland, in July 2016. “So we decided to begin by the
gap analysis to see what we already have, what the government is already doing
and compare it to 17 SDGs. Based on that we brought our national voluntary
review,” she explained to the auditorium.
Following these two presentations, another round of
stakeholders presented their positions and tried to bring answer to the set of these
questions:
- Are our systems ready for implementing SDGs and reporting on the implementation?
- What is the role of civil society, municipalities and private sector in implementing and monitoring the 2030 Agenda?
- Where are our biggest achievements and challenges in getting everyone involved?
Mr. Jakub Rudy (CZ), Policy Officer, Gvt Council for Sustainable Development
Basically, we try to involve NGOs, academia and public, private sectors but the problem is that we are somehow pioneering the way which has not broad support through the institutions, we have some strong political support from PM but there’s not broad political support from other parties and from all the institutions and public sector.
There’s the question if our systems are ready for implementing SDGs and maybe I would say that they are not ready because the design of the public sector, of the institutions was made somewhere in 19th century in the time of the single-issue problems and at that time maybe it was possible to have single-issue problem and single-issue solution.
Ms. Eili Lepik (EE), Chief Adviser & National Contact for
Sustainable Development, Estonian Government Office, Strategy Unit
Yu can have the systems in place, government officials who are ready to implement but if you don’t have the political will or if the decision-makers are not aware of the SDGs in a wider sense that every action counts and it’s really difficult to see the actions to happen, whatever you are doing for policy reasons.
Yu can have the systems in place, government officials who are ready to implement but if you don’t have the political will or if the decision-makers are not aware of the SDGs in a wider sense that every action counts and it’s really difficult to see the actions to happen, whatever you are doing for policy reasons.
Ms. Anna-Stiina Lundqvist (FI), Policy Adviser, External Environment Analysis and
Agenda 2030, NGO network Kepa
Finland has a long history of SDG work and we also have a whole hierarchy so we work together – civil society and government. We asked the Finnish society – I represent development cooperation organizations but we work together with organizations like church and trade unions, sports and also health organizations. And we are planning, for example, to do this shadow reporting yearly and use these shadow reports as tools for advocacy. We have also written local national global level recommendations to Finland’s national implementation plan. The thing is that the advocacy work is definitely needed because there are very clear challenges when it comes to this implementation.
Finland has a long history of SDG work and we also have a whole hierarchy so we work together – civil society and government. We asked the Finnish society – I represent development cooperation organizations but we work together with organizations like church and trade unions, sports and also health organizations. And we are planning, for example, to do this shadow reporting yearly and use these shadow reports as tools for advocacy. We have also written local national global level recommendations to Finland’s national implementation plan. The thing is that the advocacy work is definitely needed because there are very clear challenges when it comes to this implementation.
Ms. Marija Kazlauskaite (LT), Chief Officer, Strategic planning division,
Department of Economics and International Relations, Ministry of
Environment of Lithuania
We don’t want to have many national SDGs to be priorities. We decided to have as less as possible because when you have a lot, you basically don’t have any priority. So to achieve this, to come up to this conclusion, we had to have some work in working group where all the representatives of different ministries took part. I am also happy to say that also representatives from NGOs were involved, our other stakeholders from business environment also took part and also they got a chance to participate at the meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office.
We don’t want to have many national SDGs to be priorities. We decided to have as less as possible because when you have a lot, you basically don’t have any priority. So to achieve this, to come up to this conclusion, we had to have some work in working group where all the representatives of different ministries took part. I am also happy to say that also representatives from NGOs were involved, our other stakeholders from business environment also took part and also they got a chance to participate at the meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office.
Ms. Ruta Avulyte Jelage (LT), Executive Director, Lithuanian
Non-Governmental Development Cooperation Organisation´s Platform (NDGO
Platform)
That’s a very good question whether the civil society should get involved and I think the first part has been already answered at the conference that yes, we have to be involved. And yes, we have to be involved actively and not only with the policy papers kind of proposals, but actually sitting in the commissions. Now, are we involved? In Lithuanian case no. So, out of 17 goals Lithuania chose to have 6, not even the education is there or sustainable development partnerships. It’s a big big lose for the NGO sector in Lithuania, not only NGOs, but some of the ministerial agencies as well.
That’s a very good question whether the civil society should get involved and I think the first part has been already answered at the conference that yes, we have to be involved. And yes, we have to be involved actively and not only with the policy papers kind of proposals, but actually sitting in the commissions. Now, are we involved? In Lithuanian case no. So, out of 17 goals Lithuania chose to have 6, not even the education is there or sustainable development partnerships. It’s a big big lose for the NGO sector in Lithuania, not only NGOs, but some of the ministerial agencies as well.
Ms. Mara Simane (LV), Adviser, Department of Development Planning,
Cross-Sectoral Coordination Centre
In Latvia, it’s very important for us to have the performance indicators as a backbone in everything we're doing.
It’s not a sustainable development goal to decrease inequality or reduce poverty it’s a Latvian national development goal, so one of our big risks is for people - because the more we talk about something being a very international process, the more we lose people.
Each of the ministries works and cooperates with all the NGO sectors. We don’t need this separate process for cooperating of NGOs; it has to go naturally through that.
In Latvia, it’s very important for us to have the performance indicators as a backbone in everything we're doing.
It’s not a sustainable development goal to decrease inequality or reduce poverty it’s a Latvian national development goal, so one of our big risks is for people - because the more we talk about something being a very international process, the more we lose people.
Each of the ministries works and cooperates with all the NGO sectors. We don’t need this separate process for cooperating of NGOs; it has to go naturally through that.
Mr. Ladislav Simko (SK), Director of the Department for Cross-Sectional
Priorities, Government Office of the Slovak Republic
The implementation has to comply with the principle of partnership, communication, participative preparation approval, implementation monitoring and also evaluation of results of all strategies. It is necessarily harmonized with common co-working strategy with strong involvement of direct and indirect stakeholders. We have prepared a basic study as the baseline work for analytic communication, sustainable development strategy 2016+ based on the SDGs.
The implementation has to comply with the principle of partnership, communication, participative preparation approval, implementation monitoring and also evaluation of results of all strategies. It is necessarily harmonized with common co-working strategy with strong involvement of direct and indirect stakeholders. We have prepared a basic study as the baseline work for analytic communication, sustainable development strategy 2016+ based on the SDGs.
Mrs. Moizza Binat Sarwar (UK), Research Officer, Overseas Development Institute
(ODI)
I think one of the problems with the country like the UK which spends 0,7% of its ODA abroad is that the entire focus on global goals has thus far been on low and middle-income countries. So, the department that focuses is engaged with the global goals is outward-looking. But for domestic implementation, it needs to happen in the completely different sector, in the Department of Works and Pensions so it seems that there is this little gap in conversation between the departments that has been internationally engaged with these goals and the ones that need to actually do it domestically.
I think one of the problems with the country like the UK which spends 0,7% of its ODA abroad is that the entire focus on global goals has thus far been on low and middle-income countries. So, the department that focuses is engaged with the global goals is outward-looking. But for domestic implementation, it needs to happen in the completely different sector, in the Department of Works and Pensions so it seems that there is this little gap in conversation between the departments that has been internationally engaged with these goals and the ones that need to actually do it domestically.
3. Thinking about policy coherence for sustainable
development (PCSD): What mechanisms and abilities do we have at the national
level?
For the collective achievement of SDGs, a coherent
strategy is crucial. It must ensure that the implementation of one goal
reinforces, or at least does not undermine, the achievement of other goals on
both, national and global levels. PCSD is a policy tool to systematically
integrate the economic, social, environmental, and governance dimensions of
sustainable development into policy-making, and ensuring that they are mutually
supportive. Do we have mechanisms and ability to ensure policy coherence?
Also at the beginning of third discussion
round there were two opening presentations. They were given by Mrs Ebba
Dohlman, Mrs. Ebba Dohlman, Head of Policy Coherence for Sustainable
Development Unit at OECD, and by Mrs. Tomas Balco from Slovak
Ministry of Finance but given from the position independent international
expert on development taxation in no way representing the opinion of ministry
of finance.
Ebba Dohlman held her presentation, named Transitioning Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) to
Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development (PCSD). Are institutions fit for
purpose? on evolution of concept of
policy coherence for development (PCD) into concept of policy coherence for
sustainable development (PCSD). She has explained that it is important for two
reasons “one is nature of new agenda which is very different, and second is
because the global context has changed considerably.” The role of ODA,
indeed still important, is changing and development approaches thus have to
move to another understanding. She has explained that new development approach
should not only be about financial contributions. As an example she has used,
for example, reducing the climate footprint and domestic consumption as a part
of the process, or about strengthening of good governance globally.
Tomas Balco dedicated his rather critical presentation named Global trade and tax: change of paradigm in favour of
sustainable development to specific
field of development policies - change of taxation infrastructure as an
instrument conducive to successful efforts to reach Sustainable development goals.
He was speaking about harmful tax regimes starting back in 30s of previous
century persisting until today, criticising little effort of international
institutions to come with real change. “It was an attempt of OECD to save
current architecture, it is not a radical change,” he said when speaking
about the latest international initiatives to bring change into tax system. “Less
cracks. Less areas of shades. So, this (harmful practices) will be happening at
lesser extent. But it is actually strengthening the existing rules.”
Following these two presentations, another round of
stakeholders presented their positions and tried to bring answer to the set of following
questions:
- How is policy coherence for sustainable development reflected in our food and agriculture, trade, and climate policies?
- What tools do we have for integrating the three pillars of sustainable development in the areas of trade, illicit financial flows and responsible green growth?
- What are our biggest opportunities and challenges for policy coherence for sustainable development?
Mr. Peter Lebeda (CZ), Director, Glopolis (independent think tank)
Ms. Sigrid Solnik (EE), position Estonian Roundtable for Development Cooperation
Mr. Kestutis Navickas (LT), Sustainable Development Expert, Baltic
Environmental Forum Lithuania
Ms. Sanita Kalnaca (LV), Adviser, Department of Development Policy
Monitoring and Evaluation Cross-Sectoral Coordination Centre, Latvia
Mr. Aris Adlers (LV), Board Member of Latvian Green Movement/CEE
Bankwatch
Mr. Jakub Simek (SK), Programme Manager, Pontis Foundation
Roundtable was moderated by Mr. Jussi Kanner, Advocacy Officer at Finnish NGDO Platform to the
EU (Kehys).
See some media coverage (Aktuality.sk,
Hospodarske noviny, TIVI (video),
TASR, Slovak
national radio coverage and press release).
