The New Deal and its Peace and State-building Goals (PSGs) applicable to Latin America?

This post, by Miriam Moeller with the International Dialogue Secretariat, is about the potentials and benefits of applying the New Deal to Latin American countries. The blog is in light of the current Wikiprogress América Latina online discussion on the New Deal and is a part of the Wikiprogress series on Governance.

Many of you may not have heard about the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States before now.

The New Deal is a key agreement between the 19 fragile states of the g7+ group, development partners of the International Network on Conflict and Fragility (INCAF) and Civil Society (represented through the Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding - CSPPS). Its goal is to activate change in policy and practice in fragile and conflict-affected countries. This change is considered essential in order to strengthen trust between development partners, to put countries in the lead of their transitions and to achieve better development results. The New Deal establishes five Peacebuilding and Statebuilding Goals (PSGs) which help to enable progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and to guide national and international efforts and resources. These goals include:

1. Inclusive politics: Foster inclusive political settlements and conflict resolution.
2. Security: Establish and strengthen people’s security.
3. Justice: Address injustices and increase people’s access to justice.
4. Economic Foundations: Generate employment and improve livelihoods.
5. Revenues & Services: Manage revenue and build capacity for accountable and fair service delivery.

The New Deal sets out new terms of engagement to support transitions from conflict and fragility to peace and stabilisation that is lead and owned by countries. It further outlines a series of commitments to achieve better results through strong partnerships and mutual trust.

But how can it be applied to the Latin American context? Does it have any relevance there?

To answers those questions, it is useful to take a quick look at the progress and challenges that Latin America is facing today. The Latin American region as a whole has shown very high economic growths rates over the last few years. Since 2011, more Latin Americans are part of the middle class than those living in poverty. Employment has increased, and average real incomes have risen by more than 25% since the new Millennium (World Bank 2013).

Nevertheless, growth and development has not reached all countries nor all citizens in the same way. Standards of living still differ widely between and within countries, presenting a challenge for the region. Poverty rates remain high, with around 80 million people still living in extreme poverty (World Bank 2013). One of the biggest challenges facing Latin America today remains tackling inequality.

Another great challenge that concerns Latin America is insecurity. According to the Economist “[…] insecurity has become perhaps the single most pressing problem facing the region”. Urban violence, high crime rates, and illicit trafficking make up part of the picture. As the Human Development Report for Latin America 2013-2014 shows, the region registers more than 100,000 homicides per year. The report also demonstrates that there is a connection between violent crime and low education. For example, in all assessed countries, more than 80% of inmates did not complete 12 years of schooling. 

Another pressing concern, extremely relevant to the social contract between state and citizens, is the high perception of corruption in Latin American societies, according to the Corruption Perception Index 2013 (see below). This lack of trust in state institutions can be a driver of political unrest (as recently seen in Venezuela). 

So how can the New Deal and the PSGs help middle income countries in Latin America to tackle those challenges?

As already mentioned, the New Deal provides a framework to activate change and to set development priorities.

In the development co-operation between Latin American countries and their development partners, documents defining development strategies might already exist. The New Deal can bring positive change to those working relationships and will put countries in the lead role to bring forward that change. Through the assessment of drivers and causes of fragility, countries can set priorities for addressing the most pressing concerns as well as their underlying causes and can integrate these into existing documents. The PSGs underline those priorities and help to measure their progress over time.

The five PSGs can all be relevant to tackle the challenges that remain for Latin American countries. For example, a Fragility Assessment can identify what is driving urban violence in a particular context. An outcome of this analysis might be that unemployment, access to social mobility and a lack of education within parts of the society can provoke violent behaviour. So as a result, education must be made available to all parts of the population – it must be inclusive. Service delivery in form of ensuring better quality of educational systems and strengthening economic foundations to tackle unemployment are useful activities as well. Those activities can then be marked as priorities in both national and developmental policies and then their progress can be measured through the PSGs. The same can be applied to identifying drivers of social unrest, addressing corruption, etc..

On the other hand, the New Deal can be a relevant framework for emerging donors such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Cuba and Venezuela. Since many of these countries engage in fragile states (e.g. Brazil in East Timor, Haiti, and Guinea-Bissau), or countries with pockets of fragility (e.g. Mexico in El Salvador and Guatemala), the New Deal can provide a framework to work differently with these donor countries by using the PSGs to set priorities on central developmental issues and by giving Latin American donor countries the leading role in developmental planning. The principles of the New Deal can also help to strengthen trust between these emerging donors and their partners through transparency, predictability of aid and mutual accountability.
 

- Miriam Moeller  

Literature:

• Corruption Perception Index (2013): online : http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2013/results/. 
• Economist (2013): “Violent crime in Latin America. Alternatives to the iron fist. How to prevent an epidemic”, 16 November 2013, online: http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21589889-how-prevent-epidemic-alternatives-iron-fist. 
• Laett, Jeatte (2011): Mexico as an »Emerging Donor«, Policy Brief 18, EDC 2020, http://www.edc2020.eu/fileadmin/publications/EDC2020_-_Policy_Brief_No_18_-_Mexico_as_an__Emerging_Donor_.pdf. 
• ODI (2012): Brazil: an emerging aid player. Lessons on emerging donors, and South-South and trilateral cooperation, Briefing Paper 64, http://www.odi.org.uk/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/6295.pdf. 
• World Bank 2013: “Inequality in Latin America falls, but challenges to achieve shared prosperity remain”, June 14 2013, http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/06/14/latin-america-inequality-shared-prosperity.

@OECD_INCAF

Invitation to join the Online Discussion on "Civil Society and Actions to Promote Well-being"

This post is an invitation to join the Wikiprogress Latin America online discussion on "Civil Society and Actions to Promote Well-being". You're invited to share your knowledge and experiences regarding well-being programmes in Latin America.

Civil Society and Actions to promote well-being

The OECD Mexico Centre, el Seminario Satisfacción Subjetiva con la Vida y la Sociedad (SAVISO)-UNAM-IIS, International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding, Alternativas y Capacidades A.C., Wikiprogress and Wikiprogress América Latina 

 invite you to join this online discussion

from 1 April 09:00 until 16 April 22:00 (GMT)

This discussion will be a unique opportunity to reflect and exchange best practices, research and experiences on the topic. 


Leading Questions:

• In Latin America, what community programmes and civil society activities are held in order to promote well-being?

• How is the impact of well-being programmes being evaluated?

• What factors and attributes contribute to the success of the programs identified?

• What are the main lessons learned from these programmes? What recommendations could be made ​​from these experiences?

• What are some obstacles faced in Latin America for the implementation and effectiveness of programmes that seek to promote well-being?

We invite you to leave your comments in Spanish, Portuguese, English or French in the section entitled “Contribuye” of the discussion webpage. To participate, click here. 

Here is the link to the page: http://bit.ly/1gl42wf and the hashtag in Twitter is #SociedadCivilYAcciones 

We will also be joining with the parallel event of the “International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding” held during the First High Level Meeting on Global Partnership for Effective Cooperation. Join the event and contribute!

1. How can civil society use the New Deal to hold governments accountable to citizens?
2. How can the New Deal Peace and state building goals (PSGs) be made applicable to middle income countries in Latin America?

If you would like to join the discussion use the hashtag #newdeal on Twitter.

For more information we invite you to contact us at:

Email: latam@wikiprogress.org

Blog: http://wikiprogressal.blogspot.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WikiprogressAmericaLatina

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WikiLATAM

Norms that hurt: communities abandoning FGM

This post is written by Charlotte Highmore, a junior policy analyst for the OECD and the Secretariat of the DAC Network on Gender Equality (GENDERNET). It discusses female genital mutilation (FGM) and the progress made thus far, in honor of the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation. This blog is a part of the Wikichild series on FGM/C.
 

Worldwide there are 140 million women and girls currently living with the irreversible physical and emotional trauma affects caused by female genital mutilation (FGM). Each year, a further three million girls endure the practice.

According to the World Health Organization, FGM involves the full or partial removal of the female genitalia, performed most frequently by untrained traditional practitioners. In approximately 15 per cent of all global cases this involves fully sewing the female genitalia closed. There are no health benefits for women and girls. When “cutters” without medical training perform FGM the procedure is often carried out without anaesthetic or sterilisation. Unsurprisingly, many girls die through shock from the pain, trauma or excessive bleeding.

A Deep Rooted Social Norm

This begs the question - why do it? FGM is a deeply rooted social norm enforced by community expectations around women and girls. As with the type of mutilation practised, the reasons why FGM is done depends on the context. For some it is linked with the idea of cleanliness. For others, it is about enhancing beauty or upholding religion. It is worth noting though that FGM is not prescribed by any of the major religions or supported by any religious texts. Most frequently, FGM is about controlling women’s sexuality – for example, preserving a girl’s virginity or stopping “promiscuous” behaviour.

What is apparent through all the different rationalisations is that FGM is considered a necessary part of raising a woman and girl properly. To opt out is to risk girls being rejected from the community or never being able to find a husband, which for many outweighs any health risks – including the possibility of death.

Progress is Being Made

The reality that FGM violates women’s and girls’ rights and perpetuates gender inequality is gaining momentum and progress is being achieved. In 2003, the 6th February was announced as the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation. This was followed in 2012 with a UN General Assembly resolution that condemned harmful practices to women and girls, in particular FGM. Currently 24 African nations where FGM is practiced have prohibited the practice by law or constitutional decree.

However – while important – legislative change, UN resolutions, or one individual acting alone cannot shift entrenched social norms. What is needed is for the entire community to work together to decide to abandon the practice.

NGOs such as Tostan and the UNFPA-UNICEF joint programme “Accelerating Change” have proven just how effective this approach can be. These organisations focus on working directly with local communities, including traditional and religious leaders, to enable them to reflect critically on the practice and make a collective choice to publically abandon FGM. Merely condemning the practice can risk creating hostility and driving it underground.

The results speak for themselves. Tostan and UNFPA-UNICEF’s work combined has reached over 18,000 communities in 15 countries; representing over 8 million people that have renounced FGM.

What Next?

By engaging with communities and enabling them to lead their own movements for change, entrenched social norms can and are starting to shift. We need to build on this momentum and ensure that resources reach organisations that are connected to communities and are able and willing to engage over the long-term to bring about the deeper, more systemic change needed. We can also learn from these best practices and apply them to other demanding gender equality issues such as early marriage, violence against women, and women’s inheritance and land rights. Positive social transformation is possible but it needs to come “from the ground up”.

- Charlotte Highmore

See also

FGM: the Dynamics of Change
International Day Against Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting 2013
Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting
Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: A statistical overview and exploration of the dynamics of change

Unfinished business: women and girls front and centre beyond 2015

This post, by Emily Esplen, Policy Analyst on Gender Equality and Women’s Rights at the OECD, is based on a speech prepared for the Secretary General of the OECD for a joint workshop of the DAC Network on Gender Equality and the UN Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality on the MDGs and post-2015. This blog is a part of the Wikiprogress series on Post-2015.

There is no chance of making poverty history without significant and rapid improvements to the lives of women and girls. Millennium Development Goal 3 (MDG 3) recognised that gender equality is important both as a goal in its own right and as a prerequisite to the success of all other development goals. That gender equality and women’s empowerment is one of only eight global goals has proven to be a powerful stimulus for action.

Yet despite hard won gains, we are a long way from achieving gender equality. All over the world, women and girls continue to face discrimination, exclusion, poverty and violence on the basis of their sex. The figures are stark. Gender parity in primary education has not been achieved in 68 countries. Women still face gender pay gaps, occupational segregation and glass ceilings. They hold less secure jobs than men, with fewer social benefits. 800 women die every day from preventable pregnancy and childbirth related causes. One in three women experience violence in their lifetime.

We must do everything we can to achieve the MDGs by the end of 2015. This means meeting existing aid commitments and investing in the right strategies to accelerate progress for women and girls in the time that remains. Finishing the job we started with the MDGs will also require an ambitious and inspiring post-2015 framework that builds on and expands the priority given to advancing gender equality in the MDGs.

Agreeing an ambitious agenda 

 

This was the focus of much lively debate at a workshop in early November in Paris, which drew together gender equality advocates from the United Nations, governments and civil society. Participants echoed the strong consensus emerging from across the globe that addressing the "unfinished business" of gender equality and women’s empowerment means putting women and girls front and centre in the post-2015 framework. This will require a strong stand-alone gender equality goal and the comprehensive integration of gender-specific targets and indicators across the new framework.

Now is time to go beyond business as usual and step up our efforts to empower girls and women. Participants were unequivocal that a new framework will need to address the structural factors that underpin the widespread persistence of gender inequality. This calls for a transformational agenda that is anchored in and aligned with existing international human rights standards. Priority must be given to addressing the disadvantage experienced by the most marginalised women and girls.

Fighting for the targets and indicators that will really make a difference 

 

When the time is right, we need to be ready with the targets and indicators that will really make a difference to the lives of women and girls. Already clear areas of consensus are emerging about what is needed. We know that quality secondary education has huge pay-offs for women’s empowerment. We know that putting an end to early marriage would transform girls’ lives – enabling them to stay in school, fulfil their potential and make choices about their futures. We know that expanding women’s economic opportunities is a key driver of development with multiplier effects for societies, economies and women themselves. We know that women’s capacity to influence the decisions that shape their lives is a basic human right and a prerequisite for responsible and equitable governance. We know that ending violence against women is essential for women’s full participation in economic, social and political life. Each of these must be priorities in the post-2015 framework.

Backing up political rhetoric with action

 

Building a framework with teeth will require adequate and sustained financing, and strong accountability mechanisms. Political promises must be backed up with the resources required to do the job. We need to gather and use high quality data to monitor our progress and build evidence about what works. We also need to track governments’ expenditure and the proportion of aid focused on achieving gender equality, and hold ourselves to account for the promises we make.

Towards a universal agenda

 

At the OECD, we know that there is no country in the world where gender equality has been achieved. That’s why we need to keep a strong focus on gender equality beyond 2015. It is also a potent reminder that gender equality is a universal concern that applies to all countries, including OECD countries.

The OECD aspires to play the role of “best supporting actor” in support of these global processes – recognising that real progress is only possible if countries themselves own the agenda and are in the lead. Bringing gender equality and women’s rights to the centre of government attention is a challenge for the months ahead.

Arriving at global consensus will not be easy. With gender equality and women’s rights we can never afford to be complacent – it is not a done deal. And the post-2015 agenda is a high-stakes game. But success is within our grasp if we build a broad base of support and work together with our allies in the global south to position gender equality as a “must have”.

- Emily Esplen

Ending chronic poverty: Breaking down a policy no-man’s land

This post by Marie-Claire Tuzeneu, Production Manager of the Development Co-operation Report at the OECD, provides a first look at Andrew Shepherd’s piece for the OECD Development Co-operation Report 2013.

The previous two blog posts on the Development Co-operation Report (DCR) 2013 – which discussed key points from Andy Sumner and Li Xiaoyun’s chapters – focused on what is needed to help people get out of extreme poverty (defined as an income of USD 1.25 per day). In his chapter “How do we get to zero on poverty – and stay there?”, Andrew Shepherd (Chronic Poverty Advisory Network, Overseas Development Institute) emphasises the importance of also developing policies to support those that have escaped extreme poverty and are just above the poverty line, thereby ensuring that that they don’t fall back into extreme poverty. To achieve this, he calls for a post-2015 framework that directly addresses and includes targets for ending chronic poverty.

Who are the chronically poor? Within his chapter, Shepherd defines chronic poverty as “extreme poverty experienced over many years, a lifetime, or perpetuated from generation to generation”. Chronic poverty is often multidimensional in nature and, therefore, cannot be fully captured by measures of income poverty alone. Using a measure combining income and consumption, the 2008-09 Chronic Poverty Report estimated that there are currently between 320 and 443 million chronically poor people.

What policies could help end chronic poverty? The local context – as well as related economic, societal, political or institutional factors - plays an important role in whether or not a household is able to escape extreme poverty over the long term. These factors may create barriers that make it more difficult to end chronic poverty. These barriers cannot be removed through “Business as usual” policies and programmes. Shepherd calls for a root-and-branch re-orientation and reprioritisation of policies and programmes under the following four categories:

1.   Social protection: Solid systems of social protection must be backed by national political commitment. For example, employment guarantees must be extended to jobs within the informal economy so that all employment is an avenue out of poverty, not just a survival option.
2.  Growth that reaches the poorest: Within the agricultural sector, policies should focus not only on crop productivity, but also on building the asset bases of poor farmer households. Policies and programmes must be put in place that help increase access to electricity by reducing the upfront costs for families to connect to electrical grids.
3.    Human development for the hard to reach: For this category, policies in a wide variety of areas – ranging from health to gender equality – must be revisited. Taking the example of education, current development programmes, which focus on increasing attendance rates for primary education, should be expanded to also include pre-school and post-primary education.
4.   Transformative social change: Regardless of the specific model chosen to support the chronically poor, a country must have “far-sighted political leadership with a strong nation-building plan” in order for its programmes and policies to be effective.

What targets and goals should be included in the post-2015 framework? Shepherd calls for a post-2015 framework that focuses on eradicating extreme poverty, arguing that “If the factors keeping people poor over long periods of time (or in chronic poverty) are not explicitly addressed, there is no chance of getting to or near zero.” To that end, the post-2015 goals and targets should not just focus on USD 1.25 per day income poverty, but should also look at the poverty lines just above that threshold. Under the current system, those households that have escaped USD 1.25 per day income poverty and are living on USD 2 or USD 4 per day fall within a “policy no-man’s land”. If programmes and policies are not also developed to support those just above the extreme poverty line, they risk falling back into extreme poverty. To address these concerns, Shepherd would propose a series of three targets that are illustrated in the figure below. While this specific set of targets only addresses income poverty, it could also be adapted and applied to the other dimensions of poverty.

Ending chronic poverty and other topics explored in the Development Co-operation Report 2013: Ending Poverty will be discussed in a live panel debate, which will be held in London on 5 December and will be viewable via live-streaming. For more information, visit the Intelligence Squared event page or follow the discussion on Twitter using #povertydebate.

A dynamic post-2015 goal: Eradicate extreme poverty

Note: Target 1 should be combined with Target 2 for each country, since some countries need to do more of 1 and less of 2, and vice versa.

Source: This figure is taken from Chapter 4 of the DCR, “How do we get to zero on poverty – and stay there?”, by Andrew Shepherd.

- Marie-Claire Tuzeneu

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How China’s agricultural miracle combined economic growth with poverty reduction

This post by Marie-ClaireTuzeneu, Production Manager of the Development Co-operation Report at the OECD, provides a first look on Li Xiaoyun’s piece for the OECD’s Development Co-operation Report 2013. This blog is part of the Wikiprogress series on post-2015.

How China’s agricultural miracle combined economic growth with poverty reduction

A first look at Li Xiaoyun’s chapter in the OECD’s Development Co-operation Report 2013

The world has made an important first step towards ending poverty: successfully reaching the first Millennium Development Goal and halving the proportion of people whose income was less than USD 1.25 per day in 1990. This achievement, frequently cited in this year’s Development Co-operation Report (DCR), would not have been possible without the dramatic poverty reduction that took place in China. In his chapter “What can Africa learn from China’s agricultural miracle”, Professor Li Xiaoyun (Research Center for International Development, China Agricultural University) explores the factors that contributed to this success and what possible lessons Africa could take away from the Chinese experience.

From 1978 to 2008, China’s economy grew at an average of 9.8% while its poverty incidence decreased from 63% to 10%. According to Li, this success was largely driven by growth in smallholder farming.  In fact, agricultural growth was responsible for 35% of China’s overall GDP growth and contributed four times more to poverty reduction than all of China’s manufacturing services combined. Li  attributes the large role agriculture played in its poverty reduction partially to the labour-intensive nature of agricultural work – this allowed the sector to absorb a high amount of China’s unskilled labour based in rural areas.

Based on this experience, he cautions countries against developing policies that encourage a largely rural-based population to migrate to urban areas before certain structural preconditions are met. Instead, Li argues that policies should first focus on expanding and increasing productivity within the agricultural sector. Once farmers are able to produce a surplus, this will then both help lower prices for consumers and provide raw material that will help stimulate other markets.

What specific lessons, then, could African countries draw from China’s experience? Li writes, “Given the diversity of the African continent, one of the most important lessons from China’s experience in agricultural development is the need to adapt to local and regional situations.” He emphasises the importance of carefully examining China’s experience to identify what could work in specific national contexts. With this important point in mind, Li developed a list of key general lessons, including:

• rapidly increasing productivity and total output for crops already grown by a majority of smallholder farmers through techniques such as multiple cropping, inter-cropping and double and triple harvests
• linking agricultural surplus with investment opportunities so that increasing farmer incomes also contribute to growth in other sectors
• transitioning from a crop-focused to a more diversified farming system.

Finally, he critically reflects that China’s path towards rapid economic growth and agricultural production has not been without certain negative side effects that African countries should take into account when developing their own policies and programmes. As DAC Chair Erik Solheim states within the DCR Editorial, “The challenge for Africa will be to avoid some of the negative by-products of the Chinese experience, which include environmental damage and growing inequity between rural and urban areas.”

The Chinese experience on how to reduce poverty, its potential lessons for Africa and the other topics explored in the Development Co-operation Report 2013: Ending Poverty will be discussed in a live panel debate in London on 5 December. For more information, visit the Intelligence Squared event page.

The Power of Numbers

This blog by Charlotte Demuijnck, provides an overview of the presentation by Mrs. Sakiko Fukuda-Parr on the Power of Numbers Project at the OECD,  June 2013. This post is part of the Wikiprogress Post-2015 Series.

“Before defining a new development agenda, we should fully understand and assess the MDGs’ intended and unintended impact on international development,” explained Mrs. Sakiko Fukuda-Parr[1]. The professor’s intervention at the OECD Development Co-operation Directorate (DCD) centered on the Power of Numbers Project, which focuses on broad lessons from pre-2015 global goal-setting and its positive, but also perverse, consequences. The project  looks at 11 of the current MDG targets to explore the effects they had on policy and development thinking (the 11 case studies and the full synthesis paper are available online here.

Introducing the conceptual base of her argument, Mrs. Fukuda-Parr shows that “numbers have power”, due to their scientific concreteness,  Indeed, quantified targets impact governance and knowledge; they give incentives for policy makers to focus and move in a specific direction and self-regulate according to numbers and rankings. What’s more is that “quantified goals shape ideas.” They simplify and reduce complex and contextually-specific concepts, such as poverty and gender inequality, to abstract and universally applicable measurements. 

She described her research project as an “empirical study of consequences of MDG targets on policy and idea change.” More specifically, the 11 case studies look at the indicators’ normative effects on discourses, narratives and policy choices, as well as the alternative indicators that could have been used.  Her research findings include the intended and unintended consequences of MDGs and the global quest for quantified results.

The intended effect was to mobilise political support; however, not all goals brought about this result. Unintended consequences concern both policy and knowledge in international development. MDGs had the reductionist effect of “selling human development as a package of basic needs away from the fundamental objectives of transformative social change and empowerment.” 

The confusion around the purpose of these goals (campaign slogans versus global development strategies) is a crucial issue that needs to be addressed in the post-2015 debate, because it implies conceptual differences between the goals. In particular, the “SMART” goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound) of the High Level Panel report on the Post-2015 Development Agenda are not sufficient if future goals are aimed at “development programming.” Different criteria should apply to different goals, depending on the objective itself. As such, goals should not only be quantitative and outcomes-driven, but should also be qualitative and tackle institutional arrangements. 

Related to the perceived need for “measurable” targets, other challenges mentioned for future objectives were the bias of defining goals based on data availability. The professor argued that “statistical availability should be driven by policy, and not the other way around.” In this respect, she welcomes both the HLP’s call for a “data revolution” and PARIS21’s efforts to build national statistical capacity. 

Concluding her oral presentation, she stressed the necessity of fairness in measuring the achievements of countries. The future goals need to be global as well as local. The oversimplified “off-track/on-track” distinction between countries prevents the international community to see the strong progress sub-Saharan countries have made towards the realisation of the MDGs. 

All in all, her work closely links to that of the OECD. Since October 2012, the Organisation began openly communicating ways that it could become involved in the post-2015 debate (which can be followed here). Dr. Hildegard Lingnau, the OECD’s representative for post-2015 welcomes a two-level approach and stresses the need to take national poverty lines into account in the Post-2015 framework. The OECD’s contribution to the global debate on the future goals is being published in a series of papers. An Overview paper has already been published and can be read here. 

For more information on the Power of Numbers project, click here. 

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[1] Mrs. Sakiko Fukuda-Parr is a professor of International Affairs (GPIA) at the New School University, New York. From 1995 to 2004, Mrs Fukuda-Parr  was the author and director of the UNDP Human Development Reports.  Previously, she worked at the World Bank and UNDP on agriculture, aid coordination in Africa and capacity development.