Helen Clark became the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on April 17, 2009, and is the first woman to lead the organization. She is also the Chair of the United Nations Development Group, a committee consisting of the heads of all UN funds, programmes, and departments working on development issues. Prior to her appointment with UNDP, Helen Clark served for nine years as Prime Minister of New Zealand, serving three successive terms from 1999 - 2008.
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[Diplomatic Courier:] Do you think the emerging post-2015 development agenda is too broad—that is, could it be made more effective by giving it a sharper focus?
[Helen Clark:] The thing about sustainable development is that it is broad. It is not a narrow agenda. It is an agenda that covers three strands: the economic, the social, and the environmental. It tries to deal with issues across these three strands in an holistic way. So it’s always going to be a big agenda. The issue, then, is which particular things do you select from the all-encompassing total agenda to prioritize.
And that is the way the member states have to negotiate. You will see in the Secretary-General’s synthesis report, and already outlined in the statement he gave to the General Assembly, that he has drawn their attention to the Rio+20 outcome, which said that the sustainable development goals should be “action-oriented, concise, easy to communicate, limited in number, aspirational, global in nature, and universally applicable.”
That’s quite a lot. But he is saying, in effect, that there is a lot because it is important to get it right. He’s accepted that the Open Working Group’s report is the basis for the negotiations, but he’s also said go back and look at what the Rio+20 asked the member states to do.
[DC:] Do you think the targets and indicators of the sustainable development goals are adequate?
[HC:] The proposal has 169 targets, and obviously immensely more indicators would fall out of those. The Secretary General has said that the UN system is available to assist the member states to work on targets and to work on indicators. In the end, this is a signal to take advice because if goals are to be action-oriented and actually achieve something, then the targets have to be measurable.
So the technocrats now need to have a good look at what has been proposed and ask: Is this a target and is it measurable, or is it a statement of intent? The targets need to be targets. So I think the message coming through that synthesis report is: You’ve got the basis, now look at the “action-oriented,” the “measurable,” and the “limited number” and come up with something that meets these requirements.
[DC:] Do you think it’s realistic to believe that extreme poverty can be ended by 2030?
[HC:] Well, if all things were equal, yes. But—and I immediately say but—a lot would hang on goal number 16, which is to promote peaceful and inclusive societies. It simply isn’t possible to eradicate extreme poverty in poor countries that are at war. If they are in the same state of conflict in 2030 that they are today, it is impossible to eradicate extreme poverty. So that’s why I think it’s very important that this agenda does encompass the objective of building peaceful and inclusive societies that hang together and don’t spawn the conflicts that completely throw development off track. I think that is the huge issue.
There are also other things that can wipe progress away. For example, there may not have been sufficient adaptation around disaster risk, and that includes climate risk. And then there is the question of building resilience around other kinds of shocks. The poorest countries on earth got knocked sideways by the global financial crisis because the prices for basic commodities and the demand for them fell through the floorboards. And then of course there is the issue of epidemics. Take Ebola at the moment, for example, which has hit three of the poorest countries in the world. Those countries were also three of the fastest growing countries, but a basic incapacity to deal with a communicable disease outbreak knocked things for six.
So, yes, eradication of extreme poverty is possible by 2030, but a lot has to be done to promote peaceful and inclusive societies, disaster risk reduction, resilience to shocks, and the basic capacities that enable countries to put in place a health service to cope with epidemics and provide other basic care.
[DC:] Is the development agenda largely about developed countries giving charity and solving the problems of other countries?
[HC:] No, I frankly don't believe it’s about that at all. I think that official development assistance (ODA) is extremely important for the poorest and most fragile countries. But it is such a small part now of the overall funding for development that it really has to be seen in a much bigger context.
When I spoke to a General Assembly briefing on the Financing for Development Conference two or three weeks ago, I made the point that financing for sustainable development is something very, very different from financing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs were basically about financing a gap. That is, here are the basic benchmarks of development, here are where countries are—now let’s fund the gap between the two. So we try to reduce infant death rates and so on, and you can cost what that will take. But when you come to sustainable development you are talking about the trillions of dollars of investment that will be needed in countries, both rich and poor, for things like clean energy assistance, clean transport systems, and sustainable cities. In the social sphere you are talking about bringing education assistance up, providing a fully comprehensive, better-quality system, and taking people through learning for life. And you are also talking about better health services and about improving other areas of infrastructure. So it becomes a total development financing agenda, not just a “gaps” financing agenda.
The role of ODA in that is frankly very small, which is why it has to be “smart.” The role of ODA increasingly must be smart to support countries as they build the capacity to mobilize their own resources, through a tax system and access the loans and financing mechanisms.
I had a very interesting conversation with one of the African ambassadors today, and he said he had been thinking that the total official development assistance that goes to Africa is about $50 billion a year, but that this sustainable development agenda will require about $1 trillion a year. And this is the point. So, yes, ODA is important and can be catalytic, but it is only a small part of a huge global sustainable development financing agenda.
[DC:] Why is the development agenda voluntary and without an accountability framework? Can it truly be effective this way?
[HC:] Well, we’re not negotiating a treaty here like one concerned with climate change, which takes a very long time. Here we are negotiating the outcome of a General Assembly deliberation. It can’t be compulsory—that is not the nature of it—because a General Assembly resolution is then up to the member states to implement.
I think the trick is to come up with something sufficiently compelling that will motivate countries to pick up this agenda and run with it—both developed countries and developing countries.
In terms of the accountability framework, there will be mechanisms and there will be a lot of reporting. Yes, it’s voluntary, but as we have seen with MDG reporting over the past 14 years, countries do take it very, very seriously. We work to provide the support but people do put out good reports that say: Here is where we are succeeding, and here is where we are not. At the global level we have facilitated that. So I think that as we move to an era of SDG reporting, we will move to the equivalent of these national voluntary presentations on MDG progress.
There has been a lot of talk about the data revolution and how it can be used to bring official statistics up to good standards, and how we can try to capture and use big data, to provide more analysis, and to get civil society more engaged and participatory in monitoring, which requires capacitating civil society. In other words, there is a focus now on how we know if this is going anywhere, and how we are going to measure it. So I feel reasonably confident that countries will want to do their best, will want to have a good story to tell. It won’t be a question of it being compulsory—it will be a question of people wanting to show that they are achieving something.
This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier's January/February 2015 print edition.
Photo: Inia Herencic/UNDP Croatia.
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Interview: Helen Clark Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme
January 26, 2015
Helen Clark became the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on April 17, 2009, and is the first woman to lead the organization. She is also the Chair of the United Nations Development Group, a committee consisting of the heads of all UN funds, programmes, and departments working on development issues. Prior to her appointment with UNDP, Helen Clark served for nine years as Prime Minister of New Zealand, serving three successive terms from 1999 - 2008.
***
[Diplomatic Courier:] Do you think the emerging post-2015 development agenda is too broad—that is, could it be made more effective by giving it a sharper focus?
[Helen Clark:] The thing about sustainable development is that it is broad. It is not a narrow agenda. It is an agenda that covers three strands: the economic, the social, and the environmental. It tries to deal with issues across these three strands in an holistic way. So it’s always going to be a big agenda. The issue, then, is which particular things do you select from the all-encompassing total agenda to prioritize.
And that is the way the member states have to negotiate. You will see in the Secretary-General’s synthesis report, and already outlined in the statement he gave to the General Assembly, that he has drawn their attention to the Rio+20 outcome, which said that the sustainable development goals should be “action-oriented, concise, easy to communicate, limited in number, aspirational, global in nature, and universally applicable.”
That’s quite a lot. But he is saying, in effect, that there is a lot because it is important to get it right. He’s accepted that the Open Working Group’s report is the basis for the negotiations, but he’s also said go back and look at what the Rio+20 asked the member states to do.
[DC:] Do you think the targets and indicators of the sustainable development goals are adequate?
[HC:] The proposal has 169 targets, and obviously immensely more indicators would fall out of those. The Secretary General has said that the UN system is available to assist the member states to work on targets and to work on indicators. In the end, this is a signal to take advice because if goals are to be action-oriented and actually achieve something, then the targets have to be measurable.
So the technocrats now need to have a good look at what has been proposed and ask: Is this a target and is it measurable, or is it a statement of intent? The targets need to be targets. So I think the message coming through that synthesis report is: You’ve got the basis, now look at the “action-oriented,” the “measurable,” and the “limited number” and come up with something that meets these requirements.
[DC:] Do you think it’s realistic to believe that extreme poverty can be ended by 2030?
[HC:] Well, if all things were equal, yes. But—and I immediately say but—a lot would hang on goal number 16, which is to promote peaceful and inclusive societies. It simply isn’t possible to eradicate extreme poverty in poor countries that are at war. If they are in the same state of conflict in 2030 that they are today, it is impossible to eradicate extreme poverty. So that’s why I think it’s very important that this agenda does encompass the objective of building peaceful and inclusive societies that hang together and don’t spawn the conflicts that completely throw development off track. I think that is the huge issue.
There are also other things that can wipe progress away. For example, there may not have been sufficient adaptation around disaster risk, and that includes climate risk. And then there is the question of building resilience around other kinds of shocks. The poorest countries on earth got knocked sideways by the global financial crisis because the prices for basic commodities and the demand for them fell through the floorboards. And then of course there is the issue of epidemics. Take Ebola at the moment, for example, which has hit three of the poorest countries in the world. Those countries were also three of the fastest growing countries, but a basic incapacity to deal with a communicable disease outbreak knocked things for six.
So, yes, eradication of extreme poverty is possible by 2030, but a lot has to be done to promote peaceful and inclusive societies, disaster risk reduction, resilience to shocks, and the basic capacities that enable countries to put in place a health service to cope with epidemics and provide other basic care.
[DC:] Is the development agenda largely about developed countries giving charity and solving the problems of other countries?
[HC:] No, I frankly don't believe it’s about that at all. I think that official development assistance (ODA) is extremely important for the poorest and most fragile countries. But it is such a small part now of the overall funding for development that it really has to be seen in a much bigger context.
When I spoke to a General Assembly briefing on the Financing for Development Conference two or three weeks ago, I made the point that financing for sustainable development is something very, very different from financing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs were basically about financing a gap. That is, here are the basic benchmarks of development, here are where countries are—now let’s fund the gap between the two. So we try to reduce infant death rates and so on, and you can cost what that will take. But when you come to sustainable development you are talking about the trillions of dollars of investment that will be needed in countries, both rich and poor, for things like clean energy assistance, clean transport systems, and sustainable cities. In the social sphere you are talking about bringing education assistance up, providing a fully comprehensive, better-quality system, and taking people through learning for life. And you are also talking about better health services and about improving other areas of infrastructure. So it becomes a total development financing agenda, not just a “gaps” financing agenda.
The role of ODA in that is frankly very small, which is why it has to be “smart.” The role of ODA increasingly must be smart to support countries as they build the capacity to mobilize their own resources, through a tax system and access the loans and financing mechanisms.
I had a very interesting conversation with one of the African ambassadors today, and he said he had been thinking that the total official development assistance that goes to Africa is about $50 billion a year, but that this sustainable development agenda will require about $1 trillion a year. And this is the point. So, yes, ODA is important and can be catalytic, but it is only a small part of a huge global sustainable development financing agenda.
[DC:] Why is the development agenda voluntary and without an accountability framework? Can it truly be effective this way?
[HC:] Well, we’re not negotiating a treaty here like one concerned with climate change, which takes a very long time. Here we are negotiating the outcome of a General Assembly deliberation. It can’t be compulsory—that is not the nature of it—because a General Assembly resolution is then up to the member states to implement.
I think the trick is to come up with something sufficiently compelling that will motivate countries to pick up this agenda and run with it—both developed countries and developing countries.
In terms of the accountability framework, there will be mechanisms and there will be a lot of reporting. Yes, it’s voluntary, but as we have seen with MDG reporting over the past 14 years, countries do take it very, very seriously. We work to provide the support but people do put out good reports that say: Here is where we are succeeding, and here is where we are not. At the global level we have facilitated that. So I think that as we move to an era of SDG reporting, we will move to the equivalent of these national voluntary presentations on MDG progress.
There has been a lot of talk about the data revolution and how it can be used to bring official statistics up to good standards, and how we can try to capture and use big data, to provide more analysis, and to get civil society more engaged and participatory in monitoring, which requires capacitating civil society. In other words, there is a focus now on how we know if this is going anywhere, and how we are going to measure it. So I feel reasonably confident that countries will want to do their best, will want to have a good story to tell. It won’t be a question of it being compulsory—it will be a question of people wanting to show that they are achieving something.
This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier's January/February 2015 print edition.
Photo: Inia Herencic/UNDP Croatia.
