Nations must walk the talk of investing in our people and planet by UN News, civil society agencies 10:45pm 9th Jul, 2015   July 2015    World leaders must put aside "narrow self-interest" to finance the new global development agenda, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at the opening of a major international development financing conference in Ethiopia.    "Let us put aside what divides us and overcome narrow self-interest in favour of working together for the common well-being of humanity," Ban told thousands of delegates gathered for the meeting.    We need a visionary approach to investing in the success of the sustainable development goals, writes Magdy Martínez-Solimá, the United Nations Development Programme’s assistant administrator and director of bureau for policy and programme support.    In September, world leaders will meet at the UN headquarters in New York to adopt the new agenda – the sustainable development goals (SDGs).    These goals set out the world’s shared vision for the future – a world where no one is left behind and the future of our planet is protected.    This agenda belongs to everyone. All countries were involved in shaping the SDGs in a real display of international cooperation and solidarity. More than 7.5 million people also voted on the issues that matter most to them via the UN’s My World survey.    The UN’s international conference on financing for development in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, marks a critical moment. We need a financing framework every bit as ambitious as the SDGs themselves.    So what should world leaders aim for? Here are some suggestions.    First, governments are in the driving seat. Effective domestic resource mobilisation is at the core of financing for sustainable development. Governments have a responsibility to ensure tax regimes are well-designed, fair and efficient. Public investments must be pro-poor, gender sensitive and sustainable.    However, efforts to raise domestic resources are often constrained by corruption and tax evasion and avoidance, and by illicit financial flows. Global cooperation is the best way to solve these problems.    Second, development aid and international public finance are critical. We see the difference development aid makes to people’s lives every day in our work. It made a big contribution to the millennium development goals.    The UN Development Programme (UNDP) is advocating for countries to have access to the development finance they need to realise the new development agenda and improve the lives of their people. The commitment to allocate 0.7% of gross national income to official development assistance (ODA) is as important as it ever has been. It must also flow to the countries and communities that need it most.    Efforts to improve ODA’s effectiveness must be continuously strengthened. At the same time, we must recognise that the demands of the post-2015 agenda and the range of challenges it seeks to address require international public finance beyond ODA. More resources are needed for investment in areas such as communicable disease control, climate change adaptation and mitigation, and research and development to spur innovation and new technologies. We need to think about how we can support these critical areas in ways which don’t compromise or undermine ODA.    Finally, from the Ebola crisis in west Africa to Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu and the earthquake in Nepal, and protracted conflicts in many parts of the world, it is clear that we live in a volatile world. Shocks are common and the costs high.    Achieving sustainable development will be impossible unless nations and communities are resilient, able to anticipate, shape and adapt to the many shocks and challenges they face. Investments now in prevention and preparedness for all hazards, natural and man-made, will minimise risk and future costs.    At UNDP, we believe that if development is not risk-informed, it is not sustainable.    Today’s global risks require more, not less cooperation: risks posed by climate change that threaten to leave many without land, a home or a livelihood; risks that conflict, instability and a changing climate are leading to unprecedented human displacements; the risk that our youth lives in despair and embraces the causes of violence and sectarianism; and the risk that weak institutions unable to cope with viral pandemics leads to viruses spreading worldwide.    These difficult global challenges demand better coordination, not more fragmentation in our response. Establishing more funds, banks and partnerships to provide finance and expertise may help, but without broader ambitions for transformational change, these good ideas may drown in the sea of fragility, competition and incoherence.    Good ideas are a necessary condition to show the way – but they are not enough: to make change happen, nations who can must walk the talk. That’s what financing for development is all about: setting good ideas in motion.    The motto of the conference is “invest ahead for people and planet”. I believe that investing in the wellbeing of our planet and halting climate change are investments – not costs – that can generate multiple economic, social and environmental benefits, both now and over time.    Development agenda must address causes of crisis, says UN adviser Amina J Mohammed.    The world must recognise the central role that sustainable development can play in improving global security and tackling migration as it prepares to set the development agenda for the next 15 years, says Amina Mohammed, the UN secretary general’s special adviser on post-2015 development planning, urging individual nations to look at the bigger picture.    “We have never been more insecure than we are today,” said Mohammed, who is from Nigeria. “We may not have as many wars as in the past but quite frankly, the type of conflict that we have puts everybody’s security at risk.”    Instead of spending vast amounts on trying to predict where the next attack would be coming from and mitigating its effects, said Mohammed, the international community should be trying to understand why such attacks were occurring in the first place.    “We should be looking at not excluding people, not creating the environment where conflict breeds, and deal with that,” she said. “The sustainable development agenda is just that.”    The sheer number of people crossing the Mediterranean, she added, underlined the need to address the causes of large-scale migration rather than focusing on its final stages.    “It’s commendable that people want to save lives crossing the Mediterranean and that the navy fleet goes out but what about stemming the tide?” she said. “How about using these goals to actually invest in the reasons why people would put their life at risk?    That involves a global partnership; it’s the countries where they are coming from but also the investments that need to happen in those countries to make it so.”    Mohammed said that failure at the development financing conference to show goodwill and a commitment to genuine financial cooperation could have “dire” consequences.    “It’s not that things wouldn’t happen; they would just happen without multilateralism and I strongly believe that we will go further than we will individually or bilaterally,” she said. “That’s what the world needs today: anything that happens in north-eastern Nigeria has ramifications for Africa and the rest of the world.”    Mohammed said the success of the SDGs’ predecessors – the millennium development goals (MDGs) – had shown what could be achieved when countries work together. But she conceded that progress has been mixed and thwarted by the global financial crisis, the Ebola outbreak and the violent insurgencies. If the “unfinished business” of the MDGs was to be addressed, she added, the SDGs would require motivation as much as money.    “It’s one that’s needed to be served to respond to our global challenges,” she said. “But are you ready to pay for the bill? Where is the political commitment to do that?”    Mohammed, who previously advised the president of Nigeria on the MDGs, said she hoped that the conference in Ethiopia would yield a renewed commitment to official development assistance and to targeting efforts at the least developed countries.    The risks of failing to agree a coherent commitment for the next 15 years, she added, far outweighed the risks of political squabbling in the coming months.    “We have to deal with the tough choices and the push back that we will get but we need to argue and negotiate it through until such time as everyone sees the red line is the sustainable development agenda and a more just, peaceful and equal world,” said Mohammed.    “Inequality and exclusion are just so deadly: we can’t leave people or countries behind. It’s incredibly dangerous.”    World community must act now to secure public services for the poorest. (Beyond 2015)    The world community must act now to secure public services for the poorest, strengthen global financial stability, and tackle tax evasion.    In Addis Ababa people who hold the development purse strings – world leaders, UN agencies, and public and private development organisations -- are meeting to discuss how to raise the money necessary to “address the challenge of financing and create an enabling environment at all levels for sustainable development”.    Among all the talk of where the funds should come -- debt, tax, illicit financial flows -- what must not be forgotten is why this is happening: the world’s poorest and most vulnerable deserve better.    We need to see in Addis Ababa renewed energy and commitment to targeting aid where it is most needed and a commitment from governments to do more to align private investments with the needs of poor people.    The previous two financing for development (FFD) conferences in Monterrey and Doha resulted in outcome documents which shaped a new agenda, led by developing countries but with an unprecedented amount of collaboration and input from the international community.    Squeezed budgets and changing political priorities mean that some donors are reluctant to commit to new and increased aid targets. And increasing inequality within and between countries means that aid is now a very small part of the financing mix which needs to be more strongly aligned with ending poverty.    Economic growth alone won’t end poverty by 2030, even in the best case scenario. Without more targeted resources and scaled up public services to help the poorest and most vulnerable, and special attention given to the complex needs of fragile states, we risk leaving many people behind.    One of the most important issues- and the most urgent- is getting some serious action on tax. The international tax system is too complex and inconsistent. Money that should go into government coffers to support development spending gets lost in the maze of bilateral tax treaties and parallel international tax systems.    Civil society is calling for an intergovernmental body, to be housed at the UN, which can provide a more inclusive forum for decision-making- allowing developing countries a more equal say in how profits are taxed.    Tackling illicit flows and tax evasion is also, rightly, high on the agenda. Other critical systemic reform issues, such as coordinated global action on financial regulation- to make financial markets less volatile and more secure- are unlikely to be fixed at Addis, but should be up for serious discussion.    Action must also be taken on debt. Some developing countries are still burdened with indebtedness, which hampers their efforts to develop and puts other countries at risk; the headlines from Greece show that this is clearly a topical issue not just for countries in Africa.    Civil society is calling for governments at Addis to establish a multilateral legal framework for sovereign debt restructuring processes, and recognition of the UNCTAD Principles for Responsible Sovereign Lending and Borrowing. Countries facing financial distress must be able to come to arrangements with their creditors in a way that is fair to all stakeholders; and the process must also hold borrowers and lenders to account for irresponsible behaviour.    Nothing should be off the table when it comes to raising enough funds to ensure better lives for more people. Science, technology and innovation all have a road to play as does the so-called ‘Robin Hood tax’ or financial transaction tax, which is supported by a growing coalition of member states.    Such a tax could raise revenues from financial transactions, including currency, stocks and other value papers, to mobilize additional funds for financing the post-2015 agenda, climate change initiatives and eradicating poverty.    It is also critical to secure commitment from leaders to come good on existing promises to tackle climate change, such as mapping out how to deliver the $100 billion a year which was promised in climate finance by 2020.    In the future, we will all be held to account for our actions. We must all therefore ensure that the goal of ending poverty by 2030 and leaving no-one behind is front and centre of our minds.    * Beyond 2015 brings together more than 1000 Civil Society Organisations from 132 countries: http://www.beyond2015.org/    10 July 2015    Towards Achieving Zero Hunger: Combining social protection with pro-poor investments. (FAO, WFP, IFAD)    An additional $160 per year for each person living in extreme poverty will help to end chronic hunger new UN estimates show.    Eradicating world hunger sustainably by 2030 will require an estimated additional $267 billion per year on average for investments in rural and urban areas and in social protection, so poor people have access to food and can improve their livelihoods, a new UN report says. This would average $160 annually for each person living in extreme poverty over the 15 year period.    Prepared by FAO, the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP), the report comes ahead of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development.    The report notes that despite the progress made in recent decades, today 800 million people, most of them in rural areas, still do not have enough food to eat.    Eliminating chronic undernourishment by 2030 is a key element of the proposed Sustainable Development Goal 2 of the new post-2015 agenda to be adopted by the international community later this year and is also at the heart of the Zero Hunger Challenge promoted by the UN Secretary-General.    The message of the report is clear: if we adopt a "business as usual" approach, by 2030, we would still have more than 650 million people suffering from hunger. This is why we are championing an approach that combines social protection with additional targeted investments in rural development, agriculture and urban areas that will chiefly benefit the poor," said FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva.    "Our report estimates that this will require a total investment of some US$267 billion per year over the next 15 years. Given that this is more or less equivalent to 0.3 percent of the global GDP, I personally think it is a relatively small price to pay to end hunger," Graziano da Silva added.    "This report helps us to see the magnitude of the challenge ahead of us, but we believe that we won"t see gains in reducing poverty and hunger unless we seriously invest in rural people," said IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze.    "Given the right kind of tools and resources, small-scale agricultural producers and rural entrepreneurs can transform struggling communities into thriving places," the IFAD President added.    "We need a dramatic shift in thinking to help the world"s poorest break the cycle of hunger and poverty by 2030. We cannot allow them to be left behind," said WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin. "We must invest in the most vulnerable and ensure that they have the tools they need not only to overcome hunger, but to enhance their resources and capabilities."    The report noted how the international community needs to build on the successful experiences of some countries that have effectively used a combination of investment and social protection to combat hunger and poverty in rural and urban areas.    In an advocacy note accompanying the report, the FAO, IFAD and WFP chiefs also noted that the Addis Ababa conference seeks to ensure that all countries, especially developing countries, have the means to implement national policies and programmes to achieve their development objectives, including the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals.    Lifting people from below the poverty line and making this sustainable    According to the report, a "business as usual" approach would still leave some 650 million people hungry in 2030.    It contrasts this with a combined social protection and investment scenario whereby public funded transfers will be used to lift people out of chronic hunger by ensuring that they reach a US$1.25/day income which corresponds to the World Bank-determined poverty line level.    This social protection measure would cost an additional $116 billion per year - $75 billion for rural areas and $41 billion for urban areas. Some $151 billion in additional pro-poor investments - $105 billion for rural development and agriculture and $46 billion for urban areas - would also be required to stimulate income generation to the advantage of those living in poverty. The combination of social protection and investments brings the total to $267 billion.    Much of the investment would normally come from the private sector, especially farmers. However, private investments need to be complemented by additional public sector investments in rural infrastructure, transport, health and education.    In rural areas, pro-poor public investments could target small-scale irrigation and other infrastructure benefitting small holders. They could include measures such as food processing to reduce post-harvest waste and losses, as well as stronger institutional arrangements for land and water tenure, credit facilities, labour legislation, and other areas, to make farm and off-farm activities and markets accessible to marginalized groups, including women and young people.    In urban areas, the additional investments should ensure that people living in extreme poverty will eventually be able to provide for themselves. The investments could, for example, target capacity building to impart entrepreneurial and other skills, including craftsmanship, and ensure fair labour contracts, provide credit facilities, housing as well as nutrition-related services.    From social protection to production    Social protection in the form of cash transfers will eliminate hunger immediately, and will improve nutrition by allowing the poor to afford more diverse and thus healthier diets and also fight "hidden hunger" - micronutrient deficiencies, including the inadequate intake of vitamins, iron and other minerals.    Given their meagre means and assets, people living in extreme poverty are initially not expected to be able to invest much in productive activities. However, as they become more productive through investments, they will earn more, and also save and invest more, and thus further increase their earnings.    http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/297804/icode/ http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/social-security/lang--en/index.htm http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_366206/lang--en/index.htm http://www.ilo.org/secsoc/areas-of-work/policy-development-and-applied-research/social-protection-floor/lang--en/index.htm http://www.social-protection.org/gimi/gess/ShowMainPage.action    Financing the new development goals. (Reuters Foundation)    Many advocacy groups are nervous about the strong emphasis on the private sector in funding the SDGs.    Nearly $1 trillion in illicit finance, flowing from tax evasion, crime and corruption, is estimated to leave poor countries each year, according to Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a policy research group.    For every $1 in aid going into a developing country, $10 is lost via these illicit outflows, it says.    The G77 wants the current U.N. tax committee to be upgraded to a political body with more power and money.    The proposal is opposed by the rich countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), who drew up the current tax rules. Rules that have seen hundreds of billions of dollars lost in tax havens, profit shifting and other minimization schemes.    As tax avoidance has increasingly come under public scrutiny, the OECD has been working on a supposed reform initiative with the G20 economies. Some skepticism remains on its effectiveness, with countries competing to attract foreign investment, and new schemes being devised to avoid taxes.    More than 100 countries are excluded even from this process, according to the European Network on Debt and Development.    "Except for the OECD and G20 countries, nobody gets a vote," said Pooja Rangaprasad, policy coordinator for the Financial Transparency Coalition, which includes GFI. "Developing countries are saying that"s undemocratic and they should be at the table."    Backers of a new initiative, dubbed "tax inspectors without borders", say it can help poor countries crackdown on tax dodging and fund their own development, but advocacy groups remain sceptical.    Under the so-called "tax inspectors without borders" initiative, finance experts from well-functioning states will help officials in poorer countries carry out audits to detect tax dodging, mainly by multinationals.    "For too long, some multinationals have used aggressive tax planning to reduce their tax bills, or avoid paying taxes altogether," said Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which unveiled the initiative together with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). "This simply cannot go on", Gurria said.    Better tax systems would bolster budgets and give governments more funds to invest in social programmes. In many low-income countries, taxes as a percent of GDP are under 15 percent against at least 24 percent in advanced economies, International Monetary Fund data show.    Mispricing exports and imports is one method some multinationals use to shift their profits to low-tax regimes, and deprive poor countries of money owed them.    Advocacy groups were sceptical that the OECD could act as an impartial adviser, given that some of its members are regarded as tax havens.    In the initiative"s pilot phase, Britain sent experts managed by the accounting firm PWC, which helps multinationals lower their tax bills, to help with auditing in Rwanda, said Tove Maria Ryding, the European Network on Debt and Development"s tax justice policy manager. "That"s a clear conflict of interest," she said.    Charities called for broader reforms to make the global tax rules fairer.    "It"s a small part in the jigsaw," said Alvin Mosioma, executive director of the Tax Justice Network-Africa lobby group.    "So long as we have tax havens across the world that are providing the breeding ground for tax evasion and tax avoidance, we will not be able to have effective capacity for development."    Development aid from OECD countries was $135 billion in 2014. Many developed countries have failed to devote 0.7 percent of their GDP to aid, a target first adopted by the U.N. in 1970. To date, only five countries have done so, with most contributing less than half of this.    "It"s just a question of political will," said Romilly Greenhill, a researcher with the Overseas Development Institute, which is calling for half of this money to be spent on the poorest, most fragile states.    While aid is needed to support development in the world"s poorest states, a number of growing developing countries could be able to meet a larger part of the financing gap themselves -- if rules around tax and investment are reformed, said Matti Kohonen a policy expert at Christian Aid.    Public monies central importance in providing essential services like health and education is essential.    The Brookings Institution an American think tank has called for $1 trillion a year of private investment in low-carbon infrastructure and new rules to ensure responsible investment by multinationals and extractive industries.    Substantial funding is required to fund the SDGs, between $3.3 and $4.5 trillion a year, according to the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).    Current spending on infrastructure, education and health leaves a funding gap of some $2.5 trillion, UNCTAD said.    A number of advocacy groups are disappointed with the current draft of the Addis Ababa accord which, they say, acknowledges many issues but lacks enough real action points.    "There are so many crises happening at this moment but the current document shows not enough courage, not enough urgency in dealing with that", said Harjeet Singh, ActionAid"s International Coordinator on Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Adaptation.    http://www.wfp.org/news/news-release/achieving-zero-hunger-combining-social-protection-propoor-investments http://www.gfintegrity.org/report/illicit-financial-flows-and-development-indices-2008-2012/ http://www.gfintegrity.org/press-release/new-study-illicit-outflows-correlate-to-higher-poverty-and-inequality-lower-human-development/ http://www.un.org/esa/ffd/ffd3/blog/bringing-social-compact-to-life.html http://www.un.org/esa/ffd/ffd3/blog/5-ways-taxation-of-multinationals-fairer.html http://www.iied.org/its-thought-counts-how-can-addis-deliver-for-world-s-poorest http://www.oxfam.org/en/campaigns/financing-development http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jun/25/ten-reasons-why-european-governments-should-back-global-tax-body http://www.theguardian.com/global-development    June 2015    Key messages on Human Rights and Financing for Development – Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.    Preparations for the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD) to be held on 13 to 16 July in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia are well underway. Ensuring that a post - 2015 sustainable development financing framework – which will be at the heart of the post-2015 development agenda -is consistent with existing human rights agreements, principles and obligations is a key priority for OHCHR.    Over the past years, some important gains have been made in mainstreaming human rights in the post-2015 development framework.    The Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals reaffirmed in the Rio+20 outcome document “The Future We Want” (A/Res/66/288 para. 246) that goals should be consistent with international law and build on existing commitments. It is critical that these gains are also fully captured in the financing for development outcome document.    Below we highlight the essential obligations and responsibilities of relevant stakeholders and their implications for FFD. The following obligations and responsibilities should be reflected in the FFD outcome document in order to foster policy coherence and to ensure equitable, inclusive development that benefits all persons without discrimination.    1. To expend maximum available resources: Under core human rights treaties, States acting individually and collectively, are obligated to mobilize and allocate the maximum available resources for the progressive realization of economic, social and cultural rights, as well as the advancement of civil and political rights and the right to development. To eradicate poverty, achieve the SDGS, and fulfill their human rights commitments, States must endorse a financing frame work that equals these ambitions.    To mobilize the unprecedented amount of resources needed for the implementation of the new agenda, all stakeholders will need to effectively mobilize all available resources, including through new and innovative sources of finance (such as financial transaction taxes and carbon taxes) that are additional to traditional ODA, predictable and stable, and distribute global income to reduce inequalities.    2. International cooperation: States have committed to international cooperation for the realization of human rights. Meeting existing ODA commitments fully and in a timely manner will be critical to achieve the goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and represents one key step toward the fulfillment of State human rights commitments to mobilize maximum available resources for the promotion, protection and fulfilment of human rights. Pursuant to relevant human rights principles, ODA should be effective and transparent, it should be administered through participatory and accountable processes, and it should be targeted towards the People and groups most in need, including within those States where the ability to mobilize domestic resources is weakest.    3. To ensure participatory, human rights-based development: National governments bear the primary responsibility for development in their own countries. National financing strategies, fiscal policies, tax systems, subsidies, development plans, and budgets should benefit the poorest and most marginalised and be the product of transparent and participatory processes. Effective governance for sustainable development demands that public institutions in all countries and at all levels conform to international human rights standards and principles and thus that they be non-discriminatory, inclusive, participatory, and accountable to people. Laws and institutions must protect human rights under the rule of law, including in the economic sphere.    4. To create an international order in which all human rights can be realized: All countries bear responsibilities for international cooperation and to create an enabling international environment for development. MDG Goal 8 on a “global partnership for development” was the weakest of all the MDGs. It lacked time-bound targets and failed to address global inequalities and power imbalances.    The new global partnership for sustainable development must address these gaps. It must also tackle global inequities including in trade, finance and investment, as well as combatting corruption, illicit flows of funds, trade mispricing and tax evasion.    5. To guarantee equal access and non-discrimination: States have committed to guarantee equality and non-discrimination. They should strive to ensure universal and transparent access to affordable and appropriate financial services across income, gender, geography, age and other groups. This implies establishing effective regulation, recourse mechanisms and consumer protection agencies to prevent predatory lending and ensure greater financial literacy of consumers.    6. To ensure empowerment of excluded groups: Specific barriers to women’s access to finance must be eliminated. Women and girls must have equal access to financial services, and the right to own land and other assets. Indigenous peoples’ rights should be fully reflected in line with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. In particular, their rights to their lands, natural resources and territories, and to the benefits from their traditional knowledge should be protected. Actions likely to impact their rights should not be taken without their free, prior and informed consent. Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision making related to and to benefit from the use of their knowledge, innovations and practices.    The human rights of migrants should be protected, regardless of their status. Discriminatory barriers to their development should be removed. Migrants should not be treated as an economic commodity.    Policies on remittances should take into account that remittances are private sources of finance and seek to reduce their costs.    7. To respect human rights and do no harm: As businesses assume an ever-expanding role in the development and economic spheres their adherence to the human rights responsibilities outlined in the    UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights becomes increasingly critical. Businesses must respect human rights and do no harm. These responsibilities apply in the context of public private    partnerships, blended finance instruments, foreign direct investment and all private business activities.    With regard to PPPs and blended finance, the risks and benefits of investments should be shared equitably between public and private investors. Both private and public sector partners must meet their respective human rights responsibilities and obligations. In working together, States and businesses should incorporate social, environmental, labour, human rights and gender equality considerations into their activities and subject public private partnerships to human rights safeguards and rigorous due diligence, including human rights impact assessments.    8. To protect persons from human rights abuses committed by private actors: States have an obligation to actively prevent private activities, including investments, from undermining human rights. States should establish appropriate regulations and oversight mechanisms to protect human rights from the potentially negative impacts of public-private partnerships and blended finance instruments.    Measures should be taken to ensure that the provisions of international trade and investment agreements do not protect investor interests at the expense of State policy space to promote the realization of human rights.    9. To ensure accountability: All States should adopt policies and institutional, legal and regulatory frameworks to encourage responsible and accountable investment in sustainable development. Such frameworks should include human rights and sustainability criteria and align investor incentives with sustainable development. They should go beyond voluntary reporting and require all companies to undertake mandatory Economic, Environment, Social, and Governance (EESG) reporting commensurate with the level of risk posed by their activities. This will help to identify, prevent and mitigate any risk of adverse human rights impacts.    10. To guarantee all persons enjoy the rights to food and health as well as the benefits of science and its applications: States must take steps to ensure that global intellectual property regimes do not obstruct the realization of the right to food, hinder access to medicines, or impede the benefits of development from reaching the poor and marginalized, including through application of TRIPS flexibilities, while at the same time ensuring that intellectual property regimes create appropriate incentives to help meet sustainable development objectives.    Environmentally clean and sound technologies should be accessibly priced and broadly disseminated. The cost of their development should be equitably shared, and their benefits should be equitably distributed between and within countries.    11. To ensure sovereign debt arrangements do not undercut the realization of human rights: States have committed to cooperate to mobilize maximum available resources for the progressive realization of human rights. Unsustainable debt burdens should not be permitted to threaten State efforts to fulfill their human rights obligations. All States would benefit from a permanent, fair and effective sovereign debt workout mechanism. All States, international financial institutions, relevant United Nations agencies, funds and programmes and the private sector, should cooperate to avoid sovereign debt crises by agreeing to guidelines that ensure sustainable, transparent lending and borrowing that benefits and is accountable to people, taking into consideration the guiding principles on foreign debt and human rights endorsed by the United Nations Human Rights Council.    12. To address climate harms to human rights: Climate change affects people everywhere. Yet, the poorest and most marginalized individuals, communities and countries that have contributed the least to greenhouse emissions often bear the greatest burden. Efforts to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change should therefore meet the special needs and circumstances of developing countries and of vulnerable and marginalised persons everywhere. For example, harmful fossil fuel and agricultural subsidies, both direct and indirect, should be phased out with safeguards that minimize the impact on the poorest and most vulnerable. Conversely, carbon taxes, with appropriate safeguards to minimize impacts on the poorest and most vulnerable, could be designed to internalize environmental externalities and finance sustainable development efforts.    13. To align economic policies and institutions with human rights standards: A roadmap should be put in place for economic governance reforms that ensure fair representation of emerging and developing countries in international financial and economic decision making, prevent future economic crises and promote sustainable, inclusive economic progress. Policy coherence, particularly human rights policy coherence, will be critical for the successful implementation of the post-2015 development agenda. This will entail taking measures to ensure coherence between current international legal regimes for trade, finance, and investment on the one hand and norms and standards for labour, the environment, human rights,equality and sustainability on the other hand.    14. To monitor human rights progress: A people-centred and planet sensitive post-2015 human rights and development agenda must adopt a broader measure of progress than GDP. It must take into account the three dimensions of sustainable development and be rooted in a human rights-based approach to development. The objective should be to capture the degree to which the strength of an economy meets the needs and rights of people, and how sustainably and equitably it does so. By monitoring progress toward fulfilment of human rights objectives, States can make informed decisions regarding the effective use of resources for the progressive realization of human rights.    15. To ensure Accountability of all duty-bearers to rights-holders: States should regularly review and monitor the global partnership for sustainable development based on specific, measureable, time-bound targets to ensure the accountability of all States for their commitments.    The review of the global partnership for sustainable development should include a global peer review dimension, which should draw upon and feed into existing monitoring mechanisms, including by integrating in a structured manner the work of relevant human rights bodies. The monitoring of financing for development needs to go beyond the tracking of financial flows and also assess the development results of such financial flows as well as progress on addressing systemic issues. Monitoring efforts must be under-pinned by a human rights-based data revolution that makes information more available, accessible and more broadly disaggregated to track development impacts for all people in all countries.    http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16231&LangID=E http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16246&LangID=E http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Development/KeyMessageHRFinancingDevelopment.pdf http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgsproposal.html http://cesr.org/article.php?list=type&type=157 http://www.eurodad.org/Entries/view/1546450/2015/07/09/What-lies-beneath-A-critical-assessment-of-PPPs-and-their-impact-on-sustainable-development http://www.odi.org/financing-future http://www.odi.org/opinion/9461-infographics-financing-future-end-poverty http://www.ids.ac.uk/news/trust-key-to-building-tax-capacity-for-future-development-financing http://www.ids.ac.uk/opinion/the-united-nations-and-business-a-complex-relationship http://www.iied.org/investment-treaties-land-rights-shrinking-planet http://namati.org/news/category/post-2015-sdgs/ http://namati.org/news/justice2015goal16impact/ http://financialtransparency.org/ http://www.globaltaxjustice.org/resources/ http://csoforffd.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/cso-response-to-ffd-addis-ababa-action-agenda-16-july-2015.pdf http://www.beyond2015.org/sites/default/files/Beyond%202015%20FfD%20paper%20FINAL_English.pdf http://tapnetwork2015.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/TAP-Network-Review-Accountability-Position-Paper.pdf http://sd.iisd.org/
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