Rebeca Grynspan (UN/UNDP)The European Parliament’s Committee on Development held a public hearing called “Millennium Development Goals and Beyond 2015: A Strong EU Engagement” in Brussels on 22 January.
The hearing, chaired by Filip Kaczmarek (EPP), Michael Cashman (S&D) and Keith Taylor (Greens) examined the lessons learned from the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and the scope of the post-2015 development framework with a strong European Union engagement.
Rebeca Grynspan, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNDP Associate Administrator, presented the lessons learned and declared that, thus far, the MDGs are a success for “defining an explicit human development framework in terms of people’s needs.” She also stressed that progress has been uneven and must be accelerated especially in maternal health and environment in order to reach the goals in two years.
For the post-2015 agenda, Rebeca Grynspan believes the key lessons to be learned from MDGs are country ownership, gender equality and an accountability framework that allows monitoring and measurability. A major challenge going forward will be to find consensus among stakeholders.
Video: Rebeca Grynspan: “I think that the role of the EU will be essential, and we count on EU-support”
At the hearing Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Food Security and Nutrition, David Nabarro discussed his experience developing the Zero Hunger Challenge, the UN Secretary General’s goal to eradicate hunger. The challenge with such an initiative is to achieve consensus when stakeholders have different priorities. Nabarro said it is essential to find elements of a vision that applies universally and shares common ground among the three pillars of sustainable development.
Video: David Nabarro “The only way that hunger will be eliminated in our world in our lifetimes is if governments, civil society, farmers, food producers, other businesses, scientists, everybody who cares about hunger comes together and works for this outcome”
For the shape and scope of the post-2015 framework, Nabarro recommends that the goals link together different aspects of human reality. He added that they “should be capable of being supported by societal movements, that it should enable people to realize their rights.”
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Millennium Development Goals and Beyond 2015: A Strong EU Engagement
