ACT Alliance
ACT Alliance statement to OWG 12
The ACT Alliance is a coalition of over 140 church-based humanitarian and development agencies and organisations from 140 countries around the world. 75% of our members are based in the global South and are rooted in the communities with whom they serve.
ACT Alliance believes that it is essential that there be stand-alone goals on Inequality; on Gender Equality and Women’s empowerment; on Climate Change; and on Peace and Good Governance. Targets on disaster risk reduction and social protection should also be included within the framework.
We will now give more detail on inequality with a focus on the current goal 10. Our input on other themes is available in writing.
1) On Goal 10 on inequality, we believe in order to ensure that the goals ‘leave no one behind’, and also ‘close the gap’ between advantage and disadvantage segments of national populations we support the many existing proposals for both stand-alone goals on Inequality as well as on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (goal 5).
We strongly believe that an inequality goal should include a target on income inequality, and would like to see the current target (10.2) amended to ensure that the gap between the richest 10% and the poorest 40% is significantly reduced.
We also believe that a target to end discrimination is key and we support the direct mention of often marginalised groups in 10.5. We support further inclusion of ethnic and religious minorities, and those impacted by caste and descent.
For example, we would like to draw attention to the plight of quilombola communities within Brazil. 75% of quilombola families live in a situation of extreme poverty & over 75% do not have access to adequate sanitation facilities. To truly ‘leave no one behind’, no goal or target should be considered met unless met for all income and social groups, including communities such as the quilombolas.
The goals and targets should also promote those public policies which are known to reduce inequality. On the national level, this includes universal social protection, decent work, land rights (including for indigenous communities), and progressive taxation. We therefore welcome targets 1.3, 1.4, 1.5 and 17.28. At a global level, this includes fairer trade, debt forgiveness, private sector regulatory structures and commitments to end tax evasion and stem illicit financial flows (16.3). Inequality is also clearly linked to targets expressed in current goal 16 on reducing violence (16.1) and on inclusive and participatory decision-making (16.4) and of course to targets included under goal 5 on gender equality and women’s empowerment.
[END Statement]
Additional Input
ACT Alliance also believes that women and girls should be at the heart of the post-2015 agenda and we strongly support a stand-alone goal in this area. The target 5.2 to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls is particularly important as are targets to promote the leadership and decision-making of women in the public and private spheres – 5.8 -, to ensure economic justice for women, and targets on education and health, including sexual and reproductive health and rights as expressed in target 5.9.
2) A sustainable development agenda for the next 15 years will be completely inadequate if it does not deal with the impacts of climate change as a stand-alone goal (13). This means ensuring that the new goals are both climate resilient, as the poorest communities are hit hardest, and ambitious in driving low-carbon development.
Climate change must therefore be visible throughout the framework and integrated into key areas such as agriculture, energy and water, and manifest in a stand-alone climate goal. There should be an emphasis on mitigation as well as adaptation under the goal on food and agriculture – (2.8), with a focus on agro-ecological farming methods, and there should also be greater ambition under the energy goal – fossil fuel subsidies should be eliminated by 2020. Under a climate goal there should be a clear reference to the need to keep global average temperature rise below 2 degrees, and to the delivery of promised climate finance.
A climate-related issue is disaster resilience and disaster risk reduction. ACT members have been involved in the Typhoon Haiyan response, and we have seen first-hand how disasters can set back development, erode wealth, livelihoods and destroy lives. Disaster resilience is an area which is under-prioritised and under-funded and the SDGs must seek to change that. In particular we would like to see an explicit target on disaster resilience under (goal 1) on poverty. This should be more outcome-focused than the current draft and we would suggest adding, “By 2030, build the resilience of poor and vulnerable people to disasters and climate–related and other shocks.”
3) Regarding Goal 16 on Peaceful & Inclusive Societies, Rule of Law, Effective and Capable Institutions, due consideration should be given to the transparent management of natural resources, including extractive industries, and we applaud efforts to tackle corruption (16.16). In 16.4 we would propose the addition of, “by 2020 provide information and education on a culture of non-violence and human rights education as highlighted in draft resolution A/C.3/68/L.53. In 16.9 we propose the addition of, “reducing the number of internally displaced persons and refugees and significantly reduce the amount of time Refugees and IDPs spend in camps.”
The ACT Alliance is a coalition of over 140 church-based humanitarian and development agencies and organisations from 140 countries around the world. 75% of our members are based in the global South and are rooted in the communities with whom they serve.
ACT Alliance believes that it is essential that there be stand-alone goals on Inequality; on Gender Equality and Women’s empowerment; on Climate Change; and on Peace and Good Governance. Targets on disaster risk reduction and social protection should also be included within the framework.
We will now give more detail on inequality with a focus on the current goal 10. Our input on other themes is available in writing.
1) On Goal 10 on inequality, we believe in order to ensure that the goals ‘leave no one behind’, and also ‘close the gap’ between advantage and disadvantage segments of national populations we support the many existing proposals for both stand-alone goals on Inequality as well as on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (goal 5).
We strongly believe that an inequality goal should include a target on income inequality, and would like to see the current target (10.2) amended to ensure that the gap between the richest 10% and the poorest 40% is significantly reduced.
We also believe that a target to end discrimination is key and we support the direct mention of often marginalised groups in 10.5. We support further inclusion of ethnic and religious minorities, and those impacted by caste and descent.
For example, we would like to draw attention to the plight of quilombola communities within Brazil. 75% of quilombola families live in a situation of extreme poverty & over 75% do not have access to adequate sanitation facilities. To truly ‘leave no one behind’, no goal or target should be considered met unless met for all income and social groups, including communities such as the quilombolas.
The goals and targets should also promote those public policies which are known to reduce inequality. On the national level, this includes universal social protection, decent work, land rights (including for indigenous communities), and progressive taxation. We therefore welcome targets 1.3, 1.4, 1.5 and 17.28. At a global level, this includes fairer trade, debt forgiveness, private sector regulatory structures and commitments to end tax evasion and stem illicit financial flows (16.3). Inequality is also clearly linked to targets expressed in current goal 16 on reducing violence (16.1) and on inclusive and participatory decision-making (16.4) and of course to targets included under goal 5 on gender equality and women’s empowerment.
[END Statement]
Additional Input
ACT Alliance also believes that women and girls should be at the heart of the post-2015 agenda and we strongly support a stand-alone goal in this area. The target 5.2 to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls is particularly important as are targets to promote the leadership and decision-making of women in the public and private spheres – 5.8 -, to ensure economic justice for women, and targets on education and health, including sexual and reproductive health and rights as expressed in target 5.9.
2) A sustainable development agenda for the next 15 years will be completely inadequate if it does not deal with the impacts of climate change as a stand-alone goal (13). This means ensuring that the new goals are both climate resilient, as the poorest communities are hit hardest, and ambitious in driving low-carbon development.
Climate change must therefore be visible throughout the framework and integrated into key areas such as agriculture, energy and water, and manifest in a stand-alone climate goal. There should be an emphasis on mitigation as well as adaptation under the goal on food and agriculture – (2.8), with a focus on agro-ecological farming methods, and there should also be greater ambition under the energy goal – fossil fuel subsidies should be eliminated by 2020. Under a climate goal there should be a clear reference to the need to keep global average temperature rise below 2 degrees, and to the delivery of promised climate finance.
A climate-related issue is disaster resilience and disaster risk reduction. ACT members have been involved in the Typhoon Haiyan response, and we have seen first-hand how disasters can set back development, erode wealth, livelihoods and destroy lives. Disaster resilience is an area which is under-prioritised and under-funded and the SDGs must seek to change that. In particular we would like to see an explicit target on disaster resilience under (goal 1) on poverty. This should be more outcome-focused than the current draft and we would suggest adding, “By 2030, build the resilience of poor and vulnerable people to disasters and climate–related and other shocks.”
3) Regarding Goal 16 on Peaceful & Inclusive Societies, Rule of Law, Effective and Capable Institutions, due consideration should be given to the transparent management of natural resources, including extractive industries, and we applaud efforts to tackle corruption (16.16). In 16.4 we would propose the addition of, “by 2020 provide information and education on a culture of non-violence and human rights education as highlighted in draft resolution A/C.3/68/L.53. In 16.9 we propose the addition of, “reducing the number of internally displaced persons and refugees and significantly reduce the amount of time Refugees and IDPs spend in camps.”