Geneva, 15 September 2014
Office of the
IPU President
Dear Madam President,
Dear Mr. President,
I am pleased to share with you the first draft of the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs), the result of extensive consultations conducted by a Working Group of the
United Nations General Assembly over the past year and a half.
As I have written on several occasions during this time, there is no agenda more
important for the health of the planet and the well-being of people that governments
will need to adopt by the end of next year than the SDGs. The IPU has been at the
forefront of efforts to ensure that the voice of parliaments is heard in this debate.
Among other things, we have developed several key messages on reforming the
economic model of development so that it is not focused on pure economic growth
alone, on instilling the SDGs with a strong gender dimension, and, most critically, on
including a stand-alone goal on democratic governance as both an end and a means
to development.
While the proposed SDGs are too numerous, and some are clearly lacking in one
aspect or another, they also contain many elements that point us in the right direction.
For example, I am delighted to see a goal on reducing inequality, which would be a
huge step forward in the way we approach many other issues, including poverty. I am
also very pleased that gender equality and women’s empowerment are being
addressed both as a goal and through specific targets within the entire SDGs
framework.
Most of all, I am extremely pleased with the proposal for a goal (number 16) “to
promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access
to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels,”
This is the equivalent of the democratic governance goal that most of us have been
advocating for years. It contains a number of targets that speak directly to our
concerns, such as one (16.6) to “develop effective, accountable and transparent
institutions at all levels”, and another (16.7) to “ensure responsive, inclusive,
participatory and representative decision-making at all levels”.
While parliaments are not explicitly mentioned in this goal, in spite of our campaign to
that effect, they are very clearly implied. Through our New York Office and other
channels, we will continue to push for parliaments to be featured in either one of the
targets or the indicators that will eventually be elaborated to monitor progress on the
implementation of the goal. A second round of negotiations involving the entire
membership of the United Nations is likely to resume in January and may take several
months to conclude.