Understanding the Post 2015 Agenda

Bruce Gordon, WHO

SWA Partnership Meeting, November 12th 2013

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• 2015 refers to the year that the current Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will expire and a new global agenda will be adopted.

• Aims to be an agenda that builds on the strengths of the MDGs, but also addresses their shortfalls, “the unfinished business” and neglected issues and new challenges;

• Process should be more inclusive of various stakeholders (Civil Society, Government, UN, Private Sector and Business, Academia, Citizens);

What is the Post-2015 Development Agenda?

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Two main processes

1. Process driven by UN Member States

• grew out of the Rio conference in 2012

• now working through the Open Working Group

2. Process led by Secretary General

• “global conversation”

• High Level Panel of Eminent Persons - reported to SG in May 2013

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What is the Open Working Group?

• 30 seats shared by 70 Member States, divided into regional groups

• Chaired by Hungary and Kenya

• Eight meetings planned between March 2013 and February 2014 – each on a different theme

• Water and Sanitation were discussed in May 2013

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• 1st UNDG Report: “The Global Conversation Begins” (March 2013)

• High Level Panel on Post-2015 Report (May 2013)

• Sustainable Development Solutions Network – Post 2015 Report (June 2013)

• United Nations Global Compact – Post 2015 Report (June 2013)

• Regional Economic Commissions – Post 2015 Report (June 2013)

• Water Thematic Consultation Report by UN-Water, UNDESA, UNICEF (August 2013)

• 2nd UNDG Report: “Million Voices: The World We Want” (Sep 2013)

• UN Secretary General’s Post2015 Report (Sep 2013)

Multitude of Voices

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• Build on the MDGs and complete unfinished business

• Focus on elimination of extreme poverty and reducing inequalities

• Sustainable development at the heart

• Good governance and accountability must be addressed

• Goals and targets shall be aspirational, universal, simple, measurable, time bound and easy to communicate

• Partnerships and innovation are key to identify and deliver on the agenda

Convergence of messages and principles

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• Renewed call for acceleration for meeting the MDGs

• Call for a single post-2015 process

• Clarification of the process and road ahead, plans for:

• Secretary General’s report synthesizing all efforts for the opening of the General Assembly in September 2014

• Intergovernmental negotiations on content at the General Assembly in 2014

• Summit in September 2015 to adopt the new agenda

Special Event on MDGs in September 2013

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A Streamlined Process?

What has the water and sanitation sector been doing?

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JMP Consultations on post-2015 WASH

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• started in May 2011, 200 individuals, 100 organisations, 4 working groups, 2 major consultative meetings

Working Groups Lead

1. Sanitation WSP (World Bank)

2. Water WaterAid and IRC

3. Hygiene USAID

4. Equity and non-discrimination

UN SG’s Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Water & Sanitation

+ Communications WSSCC

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Shared vision

• No one practices open defecation

• Everyone has safe water, sanitation and hygiene at home

• All schools and health centres have water, sanitation and hygiene

• Water, sanitation and hygiene are sustainable and inequalities in access have been progressively eliminated

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• Target 1: By 2025, no one practices open defecation, and inequalities in the practice of open defecation have been progressively eliminated

• Target 2: By 2030, everyone uses a basic drinking water supply and handwashing facilities when at home, all schools and health centers provide all users with basic drinking water supply and adequate sanitation, handwashing facilities and menstrual hygiene facilities, and inequalities in access to each of these services have been progressively eliminated

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Proposed targets

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Proposed targets

• Target 3: By 2040, everyone uses adequate sanitation when at home, the proportion of the population not using an intermediate drinking water supply at home has been reduced by half, the excreta from at least half of schools, health centers and households with adequate sanitation are safely managed, and inequalities in access to each of these services have been progressively reduced

• Target 4: All drinking water supply, sanitation and hygiene services are delivered in a progressively affordable, accountable, and financially and environmentally sustainable manner.

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Communication Materials

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UN Water Paper

• “UN-Water Recommendations for a Potential Global Goal on Water”

• Prepared by the UN-Water SDG Working Group

• Contributions from a range of UN agencies, including WHO and UNICEF

• Still in draft form

• Release of final version at a side event for Member States in January 2014

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Next Steps

• SWA Steering Committee has developed a Statement on WASH in the post-2015 agenda

• Member states encouraged to find opportunities to intervene in UN process

• UN Water paper still in

preparation