Intergovernmental Negotiations on the Post-2015 Agenda
22. - 25. June 2015, New York
German Statement on Preamble and Declaration
by
Dr. Ingolf Dietrich, Deputy Director General post 2015,
Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development
Distinguished Co-Facilitators, Honourable delegates, dear colleagues,
Germany aligns itself with the statement delivered by the European Union. We would like to add some remarks in our national capacity.
At the outset, we would like to join other delegations in commending you, distinguished co-facilitators, for your hard work which has led to a zero draft which is a very good basis for our negotiations.
With regards to the preamble and the declaration, we want to briefly highlight four aspects:
1 – Firstly: We support the effort you have made to help us better communicate the agenda.
- The SDG proposal is complex because our world is complex. However, this complexity is difficult to communicate, and it is of crucial importance that the world – everyone everywhere – can understand what the agenda is about to spur action worldwide.
- Let me recall that part of the success of the MDGs was their communicability and that they were easily understood in all parts of the world and society. Following this success model, the new agenda needs an effective communication as well, which reflects the complexity of the agenda and its transformative and integrated approach.
- In this regard we welcome the preamble which helps to make content and spirit understandable, as has been said in this room by others before.
- In our view, any key messages to communicate the agenda should be action-orientated and should themselves reflect the interlinked and indivisible nature of the SDGs. In this respect we think we might find more aggregated messages and by this also reduce the number of messages from 9 to 6 or even 5 which might be linked with the 5Ps while avoiding silo-thinking.
2 – Secondly: we are convinced that - if we want to make transformation happen - we must also change the way how we work together. Business as usual is no longer possible. A new global partnership shall devise a new spirit for working together in new ways to mobilize the actions we need from all stakeholders. All people, all states are sitting in the same boat. Universality calls on all of us to do something. We have to overcome the North-South divide. With regard to sustainable development we are all developing countries.
Therefore we welcome the language on a paradigm shift in the Zero draft and think this should be strengthened further.
3 – Thirdly: As regards the balance of the declaration, we believe that the environmental dimension of sustainable development should be strengthened throughout the text. In particular the language should be amended to reflect the more balanced language of the OWG inter alia concerning sustainable growth.
4 – Forth point: Not surprisingly we’d like to reiterate that we - as many other delegations too - cannot accept the principle of CBDR as integrated in the text. As others have already said, we are of the opinion that CBDR as set out in Rio Principle 7 in 1992 cannot apply as an overarching principle to this holistic agenda. It does not integrate the idea of dynamic differentiation as stated in Rio 2012: depending on realities, capacities and levels of development of countries. Rio principle 7 has a clear limitation to environmental degradation and cannot be the overarching concept of the post-2015-agenda.
One last remark already forward-looking on the discussion on targets: we’d like to share our view that we will find it extremely difficult to convince our Heads of State and Government to endorse an unfinished document where levels of ambition on some aspects are missing and still having “x” as placeholders. Let me stress: we agree with G77 that we achieved a sensitive political balance in the OWG which we do not want to endanger and any technical proofing must not touch any substantial content of the SDG proposal. But we call for one more effort to fruitfully conclude theses loose ends which are on the table for months now and to contribute significantly to the credibility of the agenda.
