5th Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiations on Post-2015 Development Agenda
Follow-up and Review
May 19, 2015
Intervention by Mr. Amit Narang, Counsellor, Permanent Mission of India
Thank you for giving me the floor Mr. Co-Facilitator,
We all know 'what' we are reviewing. The SDGs will form the core and actionable part of the post-2015 development agenda and will be the main focus of the review and follow-up.
However, the key question that should guide us in creating the appropriate mechanism is 'Why' are we undertaking review and follow-up?
What is this mechanism for? What is its ultimate objective?
In our view, the objective of the review and follow-up mechanism is to ensure that the SDGs and the wider Post-2015 Development Agenda are implemented successfully. The other objective is to facilitate member states in achieving the goals and targets in a timely manner.
Mr. Co-Facilitator,
It is important that we get the framing and the nomenclature of this issue right.
In our view, the task is to look at, as you have pointed out in your paper, a framework for 'follow-up and review'. Accountability is, in our view, not the right framing for this subject. The term ‘mutual accountability’ is even more unclear.
The core issues are two-fold - reviewing progress in implementation and taking follow-up action to facilitate implementation. Therefore, it will be better to invert this framing and see it not as follow-up and review, but as review and follow-up. By its inherent logic, review precedes follow-up. In our view, monitoring of progress is subsumed in the idea of review.
Since our objective is to facilitate the implementation of the agenda, it is not enough to review progress. The review should lead to action, which is what follow-up entails. This is particularly important when it comes to means of implementation commitments.
We were slightly surprised therefore that one group of countries chose to frame this debate as 'monitoring, accountability and review'. This not only omits follow-up altogether but is also at variance with the agreement in the General Assembly on this topic.
Mr. Co-Facilitator,
Several principles of review and follow-up have been enumerated by G77, Africa group and others. We endorse these.
We also support the principle of ‘diffusion of innovative solutions and technologies’ proposed by the delegation of Brazil.
The framework for review and follow-up must be rooted in the twin bedrocks of 'national sovereignty' on the one hand and 'international cooperation' on the other.
It should build upon existing mechanisms, be voluntary, simple and flexible, incentivize action at all levels, and make a special provision for the accountability of the renewed global partnership.
The framework should be a facilitative one, aimed at incentivizing and assisting with the implementation of the voluntary and aspirational objectives.
The focus must be on sharing of information, best practices and developmental experiences, at-scale and across sectors and regions.
The framework must eschew a narrow vision of one-size-fits-all and recognize the importance of respecting diverse national circumstances and starting points.
It must therefore anchor an agenda universal in relevance but differentiated in action.
In the case of developed countries for example, review of progress in transitioning their societies to more sustainable patterns of consumption should be a key focus of efforts.
The framework must recognize at the very outset, as was done by the OWG, that the agenda and its goals and targets are global and aspirational in nature, and that each Government will have the policy flexibility to set its own national targets guided by the global level of ambition, but taking into account its own national circumstances.
As mentioned by CARICOM, the design of the national level review and follow-up should be left to the national governments and we should avoid the tendency to over-prescribe.
The proposal of adding a regional layer of review and follow-up should be considered with due caution. Not all regions lend themselves to meaningful peer review and it could potentially add another layer of reporting for developing countries, thus overburdening national systems. We would much rather prefer the way it was framed by the delegation of Canada just now, more in terms of a regional dialogue on sharing best practices.
We should bear in mind that excessive detail or complexity could potentially act as perverse incentives for non-participation.
Mr. Co-Facilitator,
We have consistently maintained that the success of the development agenda we are crafting will depend fundamentally on the capacities we build and the means we provide for its effective implementation.
A rigorous monitoring and review of commitments made towards providing financial and technological support to developing countries must be a central part of this framework.
This is also important if we are to avoid the mistakes of the MDG experience.
The review and follow-up mechanism must provide adequate institutional space and attention to the implementation of commitments for means of implementation and Financing for Development.
A dedicated intergovernmental process for monitoring and review of MoI/FfD commitments is therefore extremely important and doesn't necessarily need to add duplication and redundancy to the mechanism.
Moreover, the review of MoI/FfD commitments should be actionable. They should lead to action by the global community to fill the gaps in a dynamic and timely fashion.
The international review mechanism of SDGs/Post-2015 Development Agenda must also take on the responsibility of evaluating activities involving international flows of any kind, in particular financial and technological support to developing countries.
Monitoring and review of Progress in international cooperation on technology would be an important 'ask' of the new follow-up and review mechanism. In this connection, the Technology Facilitation Mechanism, which we hope will be operationalized as part of the post-2015 Development Agenda, will play a key role.
In conclusion Mr. Co-Facilitator, our aim should be craft a system for review and follow-up that is simple but not simplistic; coordinated but not complicated; multi-faceted not necessarily multi-layered; facilitative not punitive, inviting not forbidding; common but differentiated; and problem-solving not finger-pointing.
In other words, we should craft a system that is lean, but not mean!
I thank you.
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