We Need ‘Far Fewer’ SDGs Says Leading Development Thinker John Norris

Summary

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The CGD Podcast: "We Need ‘Far Fewer’ SDGs Says Leading Development Thinker John Norris"

Host: Rajesh Merchandani (Center for Global Development)
Guest: John Norris (President’s Global Development Council, Center for American Progress)
Date: May 18, 2015

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Episode Overview

This episode features John Norris, a member of the President’s Global Development Council and a senior figure at the Center for American Progress, discussing the newly released Council report. The conversation focuses on the evolving role of the private sector in development, challenges around financing and policy, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the practicality of major development targets shaping global priorities.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Critical Role of the Private Sector in Development

• Engaging the Private Sector: Why Now?
  Traditional Official Development Assistance (ODA) alone won’t end extreme poverty. According to Norris, leveraging the greater financial and operational capacities of the private sector is increasingly necessary.
  • Quote:
    “The evidence at this point is pretty overwhelming that ODA alone is not going to lift everyone out of extreme poverty and get us where we want to be in development.” – John Norris (00:38)
  • Traditional aid remains important but is now seen as more catalytic than sufficient in itself.

2. The Addis Ababa Conference and Financing for Development

• A major upcoming global conference (the “Addis Conference”) is expected to reshape how development financing is approached, moving beyond government pledges to true multisector partnerships.
• Broader Tables, Shared Responsibilities:
  Norris highlights the growing involvement of private sector, philanthropy, NGOs, civil society, and developing country governments themselves.
• Domestic resource mobilization by developing countries, especially in Africa, is identified as a key focus, paired with efforts to curb illicit financial flows and tax avoidance.
  • Quote:
    “It means more actors agreeing to do more things and having some shared sense of responsibility.” – John Norris (02:40)

3. Data Revolution and US Commitments

• Norris predicts US Government commitments at Addis will likely focus on the “data revolution” for development, as well as avenues like domestic resource mobilization and addressing illicit financial flows.
  • Quote:
    “The body language from the US Government would suggest that they're very interested in the data part of development and the data revolution that ... has been called for as part of the SDGs.” – John Norris (04:18)

4. Call for a US Development Finance Bank

• The report recommends the creation of an official US Development Finance Bank, aligning with calls from both CGD and Brookings.
• The current patchwork approach (e.g., with OPIC, TDA, Treasury) is fragmented and inefficient.
• The proposal enjoys bipartisan support and could be accomplished with minimal new government spending.
  • Quote:
    “We’re one of the few developed nations that ... doesn’t have a serious finance institution of this sort.” – John Norris (05:38)

5. The Political Reality of Change

• Despite the practical and bipartisan merits of a US Development Finance Bank, Norris underscores that progress depends on persistent advocacy and education—especially amid shifting partisan landscapes.
  • Quote:
    “In this town, everything’s impossible until it’s not ... and then sometimes they finally get done.” – John Norris (07:34)

6. Climate Resilience Now Central to Development

• Climate considerations, once peripheral, are now embedded in mainstream development thinking.
• US Government has pledged to review all aid programs for their climate impact, although Norris expresses some concern about follow-through.
• Food Waste Example:
  Norris cites food waste reduction as a powerful area overlapping climate, economic, and development interests.
  • Quote:
    “We waste between 30 to 40% of all food between when it’s harvested and when it gets to a plate. ... Cleaning up this system ... is good for business ... good for consumers ... and means far fewer carbon emissions.” – John Norris (10:36)

7. Ambition vs. Realism: The SDGs Debate

• The SDGs (17 goals, 169 targets) are ambitious but risk becoming unwieldy and impractical.
• Norris applauds the consultative, inclusive SDG process, but believes the agenda "lacks discipline.”
  • Quote:
    “You could still have the same scope of ambition ... with far fewer goals and far fewer targets. Because I don’t think it’ll serve anyone well to have targets ... that are simply impossible or worded so poorly that nobody will feel actually committed to do anything about them.” – John Norris (13:29)
• Some targets are duplicative or unrealistic (e.g., “zero food waste,” “sustainable tourism” appears twice).
• Risks include loss of credibility and early perceptions of failure unless the agenda is streamlined.
  • Quote:
    “Finding that sweet spot of things that are ambitious but not ludicrous is really important ... by identifying practical, pragmatic, yet ambitious targets, we can galvanize additional resources and support.” – John Norris (14:44)

8. Institutionalizing Reform: The Value of Continuity

• The President’s Global Development Council’s regular reporting is commended for establishing a continuous review process—contrasting with the crisis-driven rhythms often seen in development policy.
  • Quote:
    “This regular willingness to ... look at some of these hard structural and architectural issues is really important.” – John Norris (16:45)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Private Sector Engagement:
  “The enormous resources the private sector brings to bear has been grossly underutilized.” – Norris (00:52)
• On Shared Responsibility:
  “If you’re willing to take steps, we can work together in partnership and we can bring a lot more people to the table.” – Norris (03:16)
• On Food Waste:
  “Every business that is in agriculture has a vested interest in reducing waste from 30 to 40%.” – Norris (10:51)
• On SDG Streamlining:
  “They’re messy and gauzy in some places and unrealistic in others. But they’re also terrified of reopening them for fear that everything will come unraveled.” – Norris (15:37)
• On Continuous Review:
  “I think having a relatively senior group of people that are drawn from different fields ... can be validators for key ideas around reform and how to improve the system is a real contribution.” – Norris (17:13)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Private Sector in Development – 00:29
• Upcoming Addis Conference and Financing – 01:18
• US Development Finance Bank Proposal – 05:05
• Political Feasibility – 06:56
• Climate & Sustainable Growth – 08:37
• SDGs: Achievability & Critique – 11:48
• Need for Fewer, Smarter SDGs – 13:55
• Institutionalizing Reform – 16:34

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Summary for New Listeners

This episode offers valuable context for anyone interested in development policy, multilateral finance, and the debate over the future of the SDGs. John Norris’ insider perspective underscores both optimism about innovation and change—especially through engaging the private sector and climate mainstreaming—and concern about the lack of discipline in global goal-setting. The discussion is candid, pragmatic, and sharply focused on what it will take to truly improve development outcomes in the years ahead.

Transcript

[A]

Hello and welcome again to the CGD podcast with me, Rajesh Merchandani. My guest today sits on the President's Global Development Council, which is supposed to advise the administration on how best to do development. And he's one of the authors of its annual report, which has just been published. John Norris, also from the Centre for American Progress. Welcome.

[B]

Thanks for having me.

[A]

There's an obvious theme running through this report which I have right here. Engaging the private sector in development. Why is that so important?

[B]

You know, I think that the evidence at this point is pretty overwhelming that ODA alone is not going to lift everyone out of extreme poverty and get us where we want to be in development.

[A]

This is traditional aid.

[B]

Yeah. And I think traditional aid still has a very central part in development and I think it still has really important catalytic role to play in a lot of places. But I think that the enormous resources the private sector to bear brings to bear has been grossly underutilized. And I think the thrust of our recommendations is trying to improve ways that the U.S. government and others can help lead and really use what is the largest channel of finance to transform developing economies.

[A]

And a focal point for the idea of development finance, of course, is the Addis Conference, which is happening in less than two months time now. What do you think is going to come out of that? Do you think governments that take part are actually going to bring deliverable commitments? Is the US Government going to bring a deliverable commitment or is it just going to talk about the importance of engaging the private sector?

[B]

You know, I think it's some of both. I think it's really unique moment for development, for finance, because you've got this major Financing for Development conference at the same time as the Sustainable Development Goals are reaching something of a crescendo as you've got climate negotiations nearing their hopeful conclusion General assembly in September. It's a very crowded docket internationally right now. But along with that emphasis on encouraging private finance is a recognition that there's a lot more partners around the table, that it's private sector, it's philanthropy, it's governments, it's NGOs, it's civil society in developing countries, it's developing country governments themselves. And I think that means that to really do things that are effective, we're getting a little bit away from the traditional all government deliverable of showing up. We pledge to do X or Y government, X or Y over a period of time. It means more actors agreeing to do more things and having some shared sense of responsibility. So I think if we look at Addis, I think we'll see things like a strong emphasis on domestic resource mobilization. The Africans have made clear that's a real priority for them, recognizing that they need to do a better job getting a handle on revenue to drive their own development, but also in partnership with the traditional Global north. And I think partnering things like domestic resource mobilization with a commitment to combat illicit financial flows and tax avoidance by international corporations, I think that shows that putting an emphasis on something like DRM isn't just the developed world telling the developing world to kind of pull up its bootstraps, that you need to work harder, you need to raise more money, that we're getting out of official development assistance. Because that's not the case. I think it's more saying that we're willing to take steps. If you're willing to take steps, we can work together in partnership and we can bring a lot more people to the table. So I think Addis will probably feel a little bit different and probably substantially different. If you go all the way back to Monterey where you had things like the creation of the Money and Challenge Corporation and then PEPFAR not long afterwards. I don't think we're in the kind of budget environment where you're going to see that. We're certainly not in a legislative environment where you're going to see that. But I think you will see some real commitments by the US Government and others, and hopefully those commitments loop in as broad a cross section of other governments and other actors as possible.

[A]

But when you say some real commitments, what do you think is going to happen? What do you know?

[B]

Yeah, that takes a little bit of a crystal ball, but I think the body language from the US Government would suggest that they're very interested in the data part of development and the data revolution that the has been called for as part of the SDGs. I think that is something where there's lots of partners out there in the philanthropy world and in Southern think tanks and the UN system, other governments. I think that will be a hub of real commitment and activity. And then the other two that I mentioned, I think domestic resource mobilization, illicit financial flows, you know, what exactly those commitments look like. Does it involve new money or simply expanded partnerships? It's probably a little too early to tell.

[A]

Talking about money and financing, one of the key recommendations in your report is the creation or the recommendation that the US creates its own development Finance Bank. This is something that CGD has done a lot of work on as well. How much of that is in response to the arrival and the apparent international appeal of the aiib.

[B]

I think that as an idea, this has been kicking around for a while. Certainly CGD has been a leader in this space. Brookings has done some really interesting work on it. You know, and I think everybody that does development finance has recognized that the current U.S. government system just isn't very good. We're one of the few developed nations that don't. That doesn't have a serious finance institution of this sort of. There's dribs and drabs spread across different agencies. Obviously OPIC is the lead there. But you have stuff in tda, you have stuff in treasury. You've got different authorities and programs at aid. And none of them are that well coordinated. And none of them are really designed to maximize impact. And it's also something that has, I think, a lot of bipartisan support. It's something that it doesn't need to cost a lot of money. Simply giving opic, even in its current form, additional budget to hire a greater variety of staff would allow them to do more lending. And adding staff would actually end up bringing more money into the treasury, not less. So, you know, I think it's a common sense idea. I think its roots are fairly deep. I think there's been recognition that this needs to be done for a while. And hopefully the Global Development Council is one more voice that gets us towards. Towards a tipping point and help set the stage for this to be considered seriously as we move towards the next administration.

[A]

Let's talk about the kind of political reality of it. I mean, how likely is it, do you think the recommendations you make in here will actually happen? Remember, these are the recommendations of a Democratic administration this last couple of years. Republican Congress, who knows, will be in the White House in two years time.

[B]

Yeah, I think it's important to stress that the Global Development Council itself is nonpartisan or certainly bipartisan. Its representation is drawn from a pretty good and diverse bunch of actors. Our voices are our own. We reach our decisions by consensus. But certainly, I think if you look at the support for this idea, I wouldn't say that there is a preponderance of support on that. It doesn't sit on the left or the right. The vocal advocates for it and are people that have worked in development finance in both Republican and Democratic administrations and know the issue. You know, in this town, everything's impossible until it's not, you know, and that you hear things that should be changed and need to be changed and good ideas and people fight lonely battles for them and Then sometimes they finally get done. And I think a new administration coming in would have a chance to look at something like, like this. Obviously it would take a measure of congressional approval to get it done. Some authorities, as I said, I don't think it's a big budget hit, but it does require some authorizing legislation. So, no, I think I'm reasonably optimistic. If people continue to make a push for it, if voices speak out and there is a consistent effort to educate particularly members of Congress and their staff as to why this makes sense, I think ultimately, hopefully that carries the day.

[A]

Let's pick up on a few other points in the report. I'm particularly interested to talk about the section on promoting sustainable growth that puts climate resilience at the heart of development. Now, only a few years ago, it might not have been there. So how much does that reflect a kind of change in the debate, do you think, on acceptance?

[B]

Yeah, I think that's a good example of something that has reached the tipping point. I think that there is very wide recognition that it only makes sense to look at all of our development programs with an eye on what it means for climate and the environment and that it's just good program design. Last September at the General assembly, the President announced that he would undertake or have his administration undertake a review of all of the US Government's development programs for their relative climate friendliness. I don't have a good sense of where that stands or how that process is working or who is actually running it, which is obviously somewhat concerning given the sweep of the ambition embedded in that statement. It would be nice to see more operational follow up at this point. But I think that people recognize that we need to bring these two into the same channel and that the old debate of kind of growth versus climate or development versus climate was really a false dichotomy. And I think if you look at how we are going about growth globally in both the developed and developing world, we're really trying to bend the curve a little more aggressively in terms of making our systems much more efficient. I think for me, the one that is a great example of how this can work in the real world is the food waste and post harvest loss. We waste an enormous amount of food across both the developed and developing worlds. We waste between 30 to 40% of all food between when it's harvested and when it gets to a plate. You know, that is a staggering number even in very developed, very modern economies. Cleaning up this system and tightening it up. It's good for business. Obviously, the Archer, Daniel Midlands of the world, the small ag producers in Africa. Every business that is in agriculture has a vested interest in reducing waste from 30 to 40%. There's real cost savings there. Whether they're fast food chains or whether they're small farmers or big producers or middlemen, the economic imperative is very, very compelling. It's good for consumers. A more efficient system means more food, able to feed more people at a cheaper price. So you've got an incentive on the other end of the system. And instituting an effort that means we're not wasting 30, 40% of food means vastly less use of fertilizer, it means vastly less use of fuel, it means far fewer carbon emissions. And so I think there are very practical ways to go about something that for a long time was seen as at odds with itself. And I simply don't think that's true.

[A]

And that's a good example of the way that sustainable development, sustainable growth sits at the heart of the SDGs sustainable development goals. But how achievable are the goals? 17 goals, 169 targets that cover everything really realistically, can the world actually rise to this challenge?

[B]

You know, I think having had the pleasure to work with John Podesta when he served on the UN high level panel that did essentially the first draft of the goals and targets, I have very strong feelings about individual goals and targets and how feasible they are and not, you know, it's. You can look at it as kind of glass half full or glass half empty on the half full side. It's wonderful that there's so much excitement around this process, that there have been so many member states that have been excited about it, that the UN has actually had something that has been a fairly consultative process, unlike most of its normal ways it goes about its business. I say that as somebody who worked at the UN for a number of years. Millions of people have expressed their preference for what they want to see in the targets. The MDGs were seen as a success. So everybody has tried to put every issue they care about into these.

[A]

But that's why they're so unwieldy, perhaps.

[B]

Yeah. And that's where you get to the glass half empty. I think there is real recognition that although the original MDGs were very successful, you know, they needed to be updated, that there needed to be the sustainability component. There needed to be this idea that you wanted to go towards traditionally marginalized populations, that you needed to get those populations that had been left behind by the original MDGs. But I think in going about that there's been a certain lack of discipline. I think that you could still have the same scope of ambition of the current draft that's kicking around in the open working group with far fewer goals and far fewer targets. Because I don't think it'll serve anyone well to have targets in there that are simply impossible or worded so poorly that nobody will feel actually committed to do anything about them.

[A]

So what would you lose?

[B]

You know that sustainable tourism is in there twice. I don't think I would have it in there once. There are 69 targets on means of implementation, all of which are not particularly serious and were just added mainly as a diplomatic point of leverage to say that we expect to see plans about how these targets will be achieved. Hopefully the Financing for Development conference makes clear that there are real plans and real ways to get there. There are some things in there that are just, you know, I think there's something in there about zero food waste. As much as I support reducing waste, you know, that I don't think you'll get to zero. And I think finding that sweet spot of things that are ambitious but not ludicrous is really important because it's going to be bad for everybody if two years from now we're already seeing a spate of stories about how we are failing against the SDGs, how we're not going to meet these commitments, how these numbers are impossible. And the good thing is with the expertise of places like CGD and the UN Member states, we can figure out what that sweet spot of ambition is. That we're not going to eliminate stunting in 15 years, but we can make a really big dent in it. And by identifying practical, pragmatic, yet ambitious targets, we can galvanize additional resources and support. And I think if you look back at the NBG's, they were most effective when they took where we thought we were going and then upped that level of ambition by 15, 20, 25, 30%, you know, and I think that's realistic in the world we live in. So, you know, I think there'll have to be some hard reckoning among member states about how to do this. But they're very concerned that they. A lot of member states recognize that there are too many targets, that they're messy and gauzy in some places and unrealistic in others. But they're also terrified of reopening them for fear that everything will come unraveled. So figuring out how to get from A to B, I think will be really important in the months ahead.

[A]

Now, John, you're one of the authors of the President's Global Development Council report. It's the second one. A couple of weeks ago, I had Dr. Anne Marie Slaughter here in the podcast chair, who told me that when she was at the State Department, she was obviously the architect of the first Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review qddr, the second one of which came out. She said the most exciting thing about there being a second one was that there was a second one, that it showed that it was established and couldn't be got rid of. Is that the best thing about the GDC report now that it's the second one and it's a established?

[B]

You know, I think that, you know, obviously I love the substance of the report, having worked on it, but I do think that's very important in both cases. And I think that willingness to take regular and periodic look at how we organize ourselves in terms of diplomacy and development is really important. You know, I think the defense community has a long tradition of doing that. I think that the development community and certainly diplomacy as well, have tended to move in fits and starts to let things get to the point where they're almost broken and then decide that everything needs to be fixed and launch major efforts that are often stillborn. And I think that this regular willingness to kind of dig in and look at some of these hard structural and architectural issues is really important. So I hope to see the Global Development Council continue on into the next administration. I think having a relatively senior group of people that are drawn from different fields who've got a voice on development and can be validators for key ideas around reform and how to improve the system is a real contribution and I'd like to see it going forward.

[A]

Well, here at CGD we are very happy with it because obviously there's a lot of CGD ideas that are in it. So let me say we hope you'll be back in a year's time talking about this again. For now, though, John Norris, thank you very much indeed for us joining joining me on the podcast.

[B]

Thanks for having me. Always a pleasure to be here.

[A]

Don't forget you can find out much more about our work, including some of it that's included in the Global Development Council report at our website, www.cgdev.org. i'm Rajesh Mercandani and join me again for the next podcast from the center for Global.

[B]

Sat.