In a recent meeting in Bangkok, several Asian national and international platforms and networks of civil society organisations that work on international development issues got together to form the Asia Development Alliance to promote greater South-South collaboration and joint action on concerns relevant to the region.
In this meeting, civil society activists from across Asia were interviewed and asked what they would share with the Indonesian President, who is also the Co-Chair of the High Level Panel of Eminent Persons constituted by the United Nations to advise the global development framework beyond 2015. Some of these activists were also involved in conducting national and community consultations in their countries and this is what they had to share...

A meeting involving several NGOs, civil society activists and UN agencies was organized on the 8th of March in the NFI office. Wada Na Todo Abhiyan laid the agenda of the meeting andgave a recap/update of previous events/processes by Planning towards the High Level Panel (HLP) meeting in Bali. This was followed by the action plan for the coming three months.

This meeting identified five specific strands of work or ‘future steps of action’ for the next three months:

• Developing a document focusing on specific goals and indicators for Post 2015 around specific thematic and cross-cutting concerns.
• Getting the corporate sector involved in the process by looking at platforms closer to civil society such as Partners in Change and organizations working on business and human rights issues.
• Engaging with the community- Building consensus amongst communities and prepare community asks. It also includes ‘listening’ to communities and having uniformity of parameters to gauge progress.
• Engaging with policy makers like the Planning Commission, government, key political parties, MPs etc.
• Engaging with the media

Three 'Working Groups' focusing on Advocacy, Community Mobilisation and Research were operationalized and membership to this was invited. The following groups volunteered to be part of the three working groups:

• Community Mobilisation Working Group: Nine is Mine Campaign, JOSH, Mines Minerals and People Campaign
• Research Working Group: Oxfam, India Alliance for Child Rights (IACR), Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA)
• Advocacy Working Group: Nine is Mine Campaign, Pravah.

These discussions are still open to others joining in and we welcome other groups / individuals to also get involved in these Working Groups in keeping with the respective areas of expertise.Each of these working groups would meet once a month. More details of the planning meeting along with list of participants can be accessed here.

A meeting of several MPs with representatives from Civil Society Organizations and the UN was organized in M.P. Smt. Najma Heptullah’s residence. This interactive session was called on behalf of the Parliamentarians’ Group on Millennium Development Goals (PG-MDGs) and was chaired by Shri Srikanta Jena, Minister of Statistics and Programme Implementation who shared his views on the current position of India vis-à-vis the MDGs. The meeting deliberated upon the 8 goals, 12 targets and 35 indicator matrix that India is beset with. A detailed presentation by an official from the Ministryhighlighted about the ‘hits and misses’ and said that out of 18 Targets, several were meant for developed countries. Elaborating further, she stressed that Target 1 to 11 and Target 18 stood true for developing countries. In the Indian case, according to her, therefore, out of 12 Targets, the country was ‘on track’ on 3 targets, ‘nearly on track’ on 3, while on 4 Targets it was moving ‘slow’ and the rest 2 seemed difficult to achieve or may not be attained at all.

UN outlined four areas where emphasis was needed- universal health, governance, inequality and sustainability which include water, hygiene and sanitation. It was shared that the UN Secretary General will be presenting the next set of goals in September 2013 and states as well as nations have roughly six months to deliberate upon a roadmap post 2015.

Shri Jena agreed that health sector is in crisis especially with respect to maternal and child mortality rate butremained hopeful of achieving the target since the data included is only till 2005 and does not take into account government schemes like NRHM and MGNREGA that were implemented post 2005 and have pushed the development outcomes significantly.

This meeting was a follow up of the Dhakameeting of Parliamentarians and CSOs in December 2012 that called for greater partnerships between the Parliamentarians, civil society and the government in order to ensure a more inclusive post-2015 development agenda and another meeting in New Delhi in January 2013 where a group of civil society leaders and select MPs got together to work in a more sustained and substantive manner and engage key stakeholders such as the Ministry of External Affairs in order to ensure that the recommendations can be followed through with concrete action.

Following from this meeting with MPs in the run-up to the Bali Forum, Wada Na Todo Abhiyan will be collaborating with the Centre for Legislative Research and Advocacy (CLRA) in order to work together towards engaging with MPs. One of the proposals is to engage with select MPs following the Bali Forum of MPs and CSOs on 25-26 Marchto draw further inputs so that a cohesive and uniform opinion could emerge about the priorities for the post 2015 development frame. In this regard, it is also our aim to rope in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in all the efforts directed towards a roadmap for the post-2015 development agenda.

The entire process of conducting consultations across various sectors was concluded with a National Validation Workshop that saw the various sectors sit together and share findings from all the UN-facilitated consultations that were held through the length and breadth of the country on identifying priorities for the post-2015 development frame.

Sectors included civil society (facilitated by Wada Na Todo Abhiyan), academia (Research and Information Systems for Developing Countries), Farmers’ Association (Small Farmers’ Agri-Business Consortium), Industry (Confederation of Indian Industry), Trade Unions (Indian National Trade Union Congress), Women’s Associations (National Mission for Empowerment of Women), and youth (facilitated by Pravah, JOSH, Restless Development and The YP Foundation). The presentations made by all the sectors are available here along with the overview presentation by the UN Resident Coordinator that can be accessed here.

In its recommendations and observations, Wada Na Todo Abhiyan stressed the need to foreground all post-2015 discussions around social inclusion and adopting a human rights lens. This becomes vital given the growing and continued inequality confronting a huge majority of the country’s population that is marginalized by virtue of their sex, caste, social group, disability, and other social constraints. Right to a decent life and work was another critical concern that was flagged. The need for fixing responsibility on the developed countries resonated as a common observation from all sectors.

In an unprecedented show of solidarity, over 300 civil society representatives from around the globe converged in Bonn, Germany recently where they discussed strategies for engaging and influencing the post-2015 development frame. A key message that came from this meeting was underscoring the need to confront the governments and the UN in this regard should some of the essential must-haves be ignored and this was articulated in the form of a Red Flag Statement that calls for raising red flags to any further movement towards a development agenda setting without addressing concerns relating to land grab, gender justice, financing for development among others. The full Red Flag Statement can be downloaded here.

To sign on to this Statement, please visit: http://www.worldwewant2015.org/node/331092

A delegation of MPs, journalists, CSOs will be participating in the UN High Level Panel meeting in Bali as also some of the other parallel discussions on examining the alternative framework for development in the post-2015 scenario to advocate and recommend on critical sectors such as food security, education, health, social exclusion, peace and conflict, democracy, governance, gender justice and environmental justice. More details on the events and meetings will be shared in the next couple of days.