The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has been agreed, along with 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their 169 targets seek to build on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and “complete what these did not achieve”. MDG4: Reduce Child Mortality is one the goals which failed to achieve its single target to “Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015 the under-five mortality rate (U5MR).” MDG4 mobilised global efforts to promote child survival and health, (and indeed between 1990 and 2013, the annual number of under-five deaths declined by half to 6.3 million) but was also critiqued from many diverse perspectives. Despite global progress towards MDG4, the poorest children and indeed the poorest countries, have been left behind. SDG Target 3.2, states: 'By 2030, end preventable deaths of newborns and children under 5 years of age, with all countries aiming to reduce neonatal mortality to at least as low as 12 per 1,000 live births and under five mortality to at least as low as 25 per 1,000 live births'. For SDGs to build on the lessons of the MDGs, the author indicates that the targets should be framed in the unambiguous terms of reducing inequalities. The author suggests that it is difficult to predict how target 3.2 will be measured, and how countries will be held globally accountable, but proposes that all countries should at least report on the gap in child survival between the richest and the poorest, and their progress towards equality of outcomes. To make sure this happens, civil society and human rights mechanisms need to be mobilized around the child’s right to survival and to health, without discrimination.
Values, Policies and Rights
It is widely recognised that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) need to be supported by more effective follow-up and review—or accountability—processes than were available to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). But what should these processes be? In the last three or four years, this question has generated a wealth of literature within the UN and beyond. Here the author highlights five key points: Monitoring is not accountability, but one step towards accountability; although experts have a significant role to play, accountability should not be reduced to a technocratic exercise; it should be as transparent, accessible and participatory as possible. Accountability at the global level is important, but the primary locus for accountability must be at the national and sub-national levels; it is difficult for States at the national-level to hold accountable stakeholders, including non-state actors, for their transnational contributions and commitments to development, such as SDG17. One of the most important roles for global-level accountability is to strengthen accountability for these transnational contributions and commitments - because the SDGs are a colossal challenge of extraordinary complexity, they need to be supported by diverse accountability arrangements, including independent review of stakeholders’ progress, promises and commitments.
In September 2015 Heads of States and Governments will gather at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York City to agree on a new set Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and a 'global plan of action for people, planet and prosperity'. The latest draft of this declaration which promises to 'transform our world' by 2030 and ensure that no one will be left behind in the process has just recently been released. However, the PHM notes that many of these same governments, particularly the more powerful ones among them, are also currently negotiating new 'free trade' deals that will have far-reaching implications for peoples in both the global North and South and for the future of the world economy and the planet. These agreements as they are currently framed and when adopted side-by-side, will not usher a new dawn for humanity. Instead they are likely to further concentrate power and wealth in the hands of the 1% on the one hand, and deepen the dispossession, exploitation and oppression of peoples and environmental plunder on the other. A call, initiated by the Campaign for People's Goals for Sustainable Development, notes that people will not accept a development agenda that will serve as a vehicle for strengthening corporate power, re-legitimise the global capitalist growth model and perpetuate neoliberal globalisation.
This report demonstrates the relationship between sexual health, human rights and the law. Drawing from a review of public health evidence and extensive research into human rights law at international, regional and national levels, the report shows how states in different parts of the world can and do support sexual health through legal and other mechanisms that are consistent with human rights standards and their own human rights obligations.
In the last two decades, there have been a plethora of South African policies to promote safety. However, indications suggest that the policy response to violence is not coherently formulated, comprehensive, or evenly implemented. This study examines selected South African national legislative instruments in terms of their framing and definition of violence and its typology, vulnerable populations, and prevention. This study comprises a directed content analysis of selected legislative documents from South African ministries mandated to prevent violence and its consequences or tasked with the prevention of key contributors to violence. The legislative documents recognised the high levels of violence, confirmed the prioritisation of selected vulnerable groups, especially women, children, disabled persons, and rural populations, and above all drew on criminological perspectives to emphasise tertiary prevention interventions. There is a policy focus on the protection and support of victims and the prosecution of perpetrators, but near absent recognition of men as victims. The authors argue for the policy framework to be broadened from primarily criminological and prosecutorial perspectives to include public health contributions, and to enlarge the conceptions of vulnerability to include men alongside other vulnerable groups.
Interpersonal violence has a grave effect on children: Violence undermines children’s future potential; damages their physical, psychological and emotional well-being; and in many cases, ends their lives. This report sheds light on the prevalence of different forms of violence against children, with global figures and data from 190 countries. Where relevant, data are disaggregated by age and sex, to provide insights into risk and protective factors.
The post-2015 development agenda will have at its core the sustainable development goals (SDGs). The SDGs are a set of universal goals covering a range of sustainable development issues. The challenge for the international community will be to match this agenda with adequate means to implement it. This translates into large financing needs. In its report issued in August 2014, the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing estimated the investment requirements in different sectors. More recently, a group of multilateral development banks and the IMF have coined the term 'from billions to trillions' to characterise the financing demand. Globally, they estimate that achieving the proposed SDGs will require US$ 135 billion in ODA, and nearly 1 trillion in philanthropy, remittances, South-South flows and other official assistance, and foreign direct investment that needs to be used effectively for the SDGs.
The Co-facilitators of the Post-2015 Development Agenda talks have released what could be the near-final version of the Post-2015 Development Agenda. This will set the stage for the final round of hectic negotiations at the United Nations headquarters in New York in end July.
The “Outcome Document for the UN Summit to Adopt the Post 2015 Development Agenda: Draft for Adoption” attempts to resolve some of the still remaining thorny issues. However, whether and how quickly the Member States agree to the final document remains to be seen. The document is likely to undergo some changes as negotiations continue, and the final document will be adopted when there is consensus among member states.
The UN General Assembly is currently considering proposals for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG 3, focusing on health, specifically includes universal health coverage (UHC) among its targets. The authors argue that while UHC is timely and important, its promotion also entails substantial risks. A narrow focus on UHC could emphasise expansion of access to health-care services over equitable improvement of health outcomes through action across all relevant sectors—especially public health interventions, needed to effectively address non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The challenge for policy makers is observed to be to not merely to improve clinical services, but to achieve equitable health outcome improvements through genuine integration of individual and population-level health promotion and preventative efforts with curative services. Future UHC evaluations should include assessments of the extent to which this integration is accomplished—with particular attention to the distribution of benefits across groups—and not, as major current work be limited to the clinical side.
Botswana has made good progress against the targets of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Gender and Development set for 2015, according to this report. However, President Ian Khama of the Republic of Botswana said that Botswana would not sign the SADC Gender Protocol because the government considers some its time frames unrealistic, and some of its measures to have serious resource implications that the state cannot guarantee. Progress is noted in the report on the health sector, with trained personnel delivering more than 90% of births and 84% of the population living within five kilometres of a quality health facility. However, the maternal mortality rate is noted to have increased and only 44% of the population access contraception. Although Botswana has one of the world's highest HIV prevalence more than 95% of HIV-positive pregnant women access the prevention of mother-to-child transmission programme. In spite of these achievements, this report also reveals obstacles for the country on the road to gender equality, including a failure to address contradictions between formal and customary laws, with the latter discriminating against women, especially widows and divorced women.