|
A new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is in the making at the United Nations. The goals will replace the current MDGs when they expire at the end of next year. The United Nations and the IPU have held extensive consultations with their respective constituencies to provide input to the negotiations. The next phase of negotiations will start in January 2015 on the basis of a first draft of the SDGs that has been elaborated by a Working Group of the United Nations General Assembly.
This year’s Hearing, entitled Ensuring a people-centred approach to the new SDGs: A shared responsibility, will provide a further opportunity to help inform the collective thinking of parliamentarains about the future goals. As the title of the event suggests, the intention is to put the spotlight on people as both actors and beneficiaries of the new sustainable development agenda.
While the programme of the Hearing is still being developed, we can already anticipate some of the questions that will drive the discussion. They include: ways in which economic and social inequality, as well as discrimination in the law, can undermine a people-centred development; the need to strengthen transparency and accountability to the people in both the public and private sectors; the responsibility of governments vis-à-vis the market; and how countries can deal effectively with their human rights responsibilities.
The meeting will take place at UN Headquarters in New York. Further information will be posted on this website soon.
| 
