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What Do the Global Goals Mean for Rich Countries? – David Hallam
00:19:18
After hearing from Tony Pipa about the US take on the Post-2015 process, I sat down with David Hallam, UK Envoy for the Post-2015 Development Goals, to better understand the UK’s position on the recently agreed Global Goals. What was the Envoy...
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Foreign.
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Merchandani and welcome to the CGD podcast. Now the countdown has begun on the 15 year life cycle of the Sustainable Development Goals. Although admittedly the clock is not ticking very loudly yet. The goals have only recently been adopted, but now that countries have signed up, what difference is that going to make? To discuss this and how nations will implement the goals, I'm joined by David Hallam, who is the UK envoy for the post2015 development goals, the UK government's lead person on negotiating the goals and implementing them. David, welcome to the podcast.
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Thanks for having me.
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What goals are you particularly happy to see in the final 17? What ones are you not so happy about?
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Okay, well, look, first of all, let's just celebrate the fact that we've actually agreed the goals and this is a really important year for international development. We're resetting the agenda with the Sustainable Development Goals, the Global Goals, as many people are now calling them. And as I said, it's a big year. We've had the Addis Ababa Financing Conference in July, we've now agreed the Global Goals. We've got the Paris Conference on Climate Change, Trade Ministerial in Nairobi, and next year we've got the World Humanitarian Summit. So very big moments of which this is of course a very important one, but very interlinked with the other processes that are going on. You asked which ones I'd particularly like to champion. We're very pleased to see both specific goals. We've worked hard in particular to ensure we had a strong goal on gender equality, a strong goal on governance and peaceful societies, to make sure that all the critical missing issues that weren't in the MDGs are included in the global goals.
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Such as gender.
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Such as gender, governance, peaceful societies, a strong emphasis on economic development as well. The MDGs were very strong on social issues, health and education. They weren't so good on economic issues. Environment was rather siloed in the MDGs and there was nothing in there on peaceful and stable society. So we've worked hard on all of those three fronts. I'm particularly pleased to see the strong integration of environment throughout the goals as well. That's something that the UK has worked hard for. And of course the concept of eradicating extreme poverty, which is central to DFID's agenda. And the idea of leave no one behind, which is targets should be met not just by the average, but by all segments of society. So disaggregating data by sex, by income group, by geographical region, and doing that will be a Big challenge. I completely accept that that requires, I.
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Mean, you talked about resetting the agenda, but that's resetting the agenda of what you actually do, how you approach development. But it also requires a culture shift in the way that ordinary people think about development. Voters, if you like, constituents, I mean, you work for the Department of International Development, part of the UK government. And the UK government has been a leader in this. I think that's well recognised. But British voters, even American voters, voters in rich countries, often think about development as a sacrifice. And what you're talking about is helping people in disaggregated communities, rural areas, everyone's got to rise. How do you stop making, how do you stop people thinking of that as a sacrifice? Well, if they're being helped, that is detrimental to us.
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I have a more positive view of what the British taxpayer thinks and we're really fortunate in the UK that we have a great deal of support from the public for what we're trying to do internationally through our development program. We have cross party consensus on the 0.7% commitment that the UK has made and reached. And I think that there's a strong recognition that working overseas to help other countries is not only the morally right thing to do, but it's also in our national interest. And the big emphasis that the UK has put into, for example, assistance for the population of Syria and Iraq, with now the second biggest donor in the world to the humanitarian situation over there, it's the right thing to do for the people. But it's also, of course, increasingly recognized tackling the challenges at sources fundamental to the global approach.
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I'm glad you brought up the point about humanitarian aid. I was going to talk about that later, but let's talk about it now. The issue with Syrian refugees, say in Lebanon, it's been a massive story in the media over the summer. Refugees on the move into Europe and the UK just announced that Prime Minister David Cameron was in Lebanon talking about continued support for that country's infrastructure. An acknowledgement that those Syrian refugees are not going home anytime soon. The idea of building up an infrastructure, how does that link to the concepts behind the SDGs? And is there an acknowledgement that the SDGS must have a connection to humanitarian assistance as well?
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So I think there's a couple of things that I'd like to draw attention to. Firstly, within the global goals, there's a strong emphasis on building resilience and that is linked into the basic poverty goal, Goal one, but it's also throughout the goals. So building communities and societies resilience to climate change, to disasters and so on, is written into the targets explicitly. And I think that's very important in making that link between development and humanitarian and acknowledging that the two complexes are often intertwined. And then lastly, I wanted to draw attention to goal 16. You know that the UK has been prominent in championing this, although among many other developed and developing countries, the importance of stable societies, of good governance, of inclusive politics, these are the issues that people really care about, that it's clear that the reasons that many people are suffering in difficult humanitarian situations is because of instability. And so it's a fundamental building block for achieving all of the other goals. And actually it's a fundamental for what people want. I like to say it has an intrinsic value. We did a study, or we funded a study by some NGOs and think tanks in preparation for the negotiations about what do the poorest and most vulnerable people really care about? The people who aren't on the Internet, the people who won't be necessarily having a line into civil society. And they reached very poor communities, and we thought we'd kind of get a steer, you know, do they care about health or education or jobs? And yes, they do. But actually, the thing that was most consistent and most prominent in that study was that people wanted a voice in the decisions that affect their lives. And that's what goal 16 is all about.
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Let's just remind people who are listening of goal 16. It says, Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all, and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. You said people really care about goal 16. The Chinese don't care about goal 16. They don't talk about inclusive government, do they? I mean, are you saying that democracy is a prerequisite for development?
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Well, the UK is a democracy and we think it's a system, but China's not.
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And China's had the biggest impact on development in the last 15 years.
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A good point. But if we think about what development actually is about in the longer term, there's a lot of evidence of, say, having inclusive politics that are able to hold governments to account and involve people in the decisions is a way that will ensure that the development is sustained. And we're talking about the Sustainable Development Goals. And we're not going to win an argument with China over democracy through an engagement on this. But China supports the goals and supports Goal 16 and would argue, I suspect, if you're interviewing a Chinese diplomat, that they have an inclusive system. We could debate that at length. But actually, the point about having accountable government is written very strongly in this. It's something the UK and the Prime Minister in particular has championed. And improving transparency, improving the ability of people to hold their governments to account is a strong element of the goals that we're really proud of.
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The goals are meant to be universal, which means they apply to all countries different from the MDGs, which, let's face it to be crude, were about rich countries helping poor countries mainly through aid. The SDGs are different. They're about helping everybody. What's the UK going to do differently in terms of development as a result of signing up to the SDGs?
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Okay, so you're right and the MDGs in principle were universal. But when you actually look at the MDGs, you know, it's clear that they're really about an agenda which is around international development, of which aid was a big part. And that was a big part of the narrative back in 2000 when they were agreed. And the world has moved on and the recognition of the problems that we need collectively to solve has moved on and the range of instruments that we know are important have moved on as well. And that's all part of the global goals agenda set out in Addis and in this summit that we've just had. In terms of what the UK is going to do different, I think it's, you know, we're a very progressive country. I think it's going to be a question of what can we do even more of. And there are three fronts for that. Firstly is through our development assistance. And I think that is part of our contribution to this universal agenda. Working with countries on development programs, but also on global goods as well, without.
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Increasing the 0.7 commitment.
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0.7 is a very strong commitment. And I think that, you know, we're going to be delivering billions of pounds of aid through that. So I can't see that us are exceeding 0.7%, but we will meet it and that we're the only G20 country to be doing that. So I'm pretty proud of that. So firstly our aid program, secondly our contribution on non aid agendas. So for example, in the G7 and the G20 and more broadly, we've been working hard to promote better cooperation on tax, better cooperation on transparency, for example, through extractive industries. Of course we have the trade agenda that will be working to move forward in Nairoga later this year. These are all really important and potentially can have much bigger payoffs than aid alone. And, and before I move on to domestic, which is I know what you want to hear about. I'd just like to mention that for us, this is one of the most transformative conversations this year in the Addis Ababa Financing Conference where we talked about the importance of development assistance many countries, but actually that as we look into the future, the flows that will be achieved through domestic resources and tax mobilization by developing countries themselves and by private investment, both domestic and international will is already really important. Will be increasingly so. And that the slogan around that is moving from billions in aid to trillions in investment. I think that's really important. Reflects an important role that the UK can play on this future agenda. But turning to domestic, domestic just on.
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That point of billions to trillions in international investment. So what is the UK going to do in areas like corporate tax avoidance?
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Well, we have a very strong agenda on tax cooperation. Internationally, we've been a leader in the G20 on improving base erosion of profit sharing and profit shifting. We'll continue to do that. And it's not my personal area of expertise, but it seems like the right thing to do to ensure that countries are paying tax, sorry, companies are paying tax in the countries where the profits are originated. And for a developing country, that can be tremendously important when you're dealing with a multinational system. So the UK will continue to be a prominent leader on that and look to make more progress.
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Let's talk about domestically. What is the UK going to do differently domestically?
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We've started off our conversation with our domestic ministries, I think probably about two and a half years ago. I was originally based in the Cabinet Office before I moved back to DfID. The Cabinet Office is our central coordinating ministry for listeners who aren't in the UK or even those in the UK.
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Who don't know what it is.
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That's a fair point. And we continue to work very closely with the Cabinet Office to ensure that we've got strong engagement from domestic ministries throughout this process. So not just, if you like, the foreign facing ministries, of which a number of defra, our Environment Ministry and our dec, our Energy and Climate Change Ministry have the external picture, but they also have a domestic picture, but also involving ministries such as the Home Office, the Ministry for Education, the Ministry for Health and so on. And a good example of how they've been part of that work and contributed to the UK having, if you like, a stronger and better informed negotiating position is around gender equality, which is an area that every country has to work on, of course. And the issues in the UK are probably very different than the issues in the developing country. But we do have things we need to do. And the Government Equalities office has played a very prominent role in helping think through what the UK should be arguing for and helping us make the arguments for that internationally. And when we had the Girls Summit last year, which is a big international moment, we sponsored it with unicef. An essential part of that was the fact that we had the Home Secretary standing alongside the Development Secretary talking about the work that we were doing in the UK around FGM and early enforced marriage. So that's an example both of how we've prepared a negotiating position in collaboration, but also we're taking things forward on the domestic front.
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Right, okay. So that was my follow up really. You know, you're talking about how domestic agencies, domestic ministries have informed your negotiating position at the intergovernmental level for the SDGs. But then what is the reverse of that? For example, let's pick a, let's pick a goal at not Quite random goal 10 reduce inequality within and among countries. How are the SDGs going to inform that here in the UK?
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Okay, so we talked about how the fact that the domestic ministers have evolved in the, if you like the process. So firstly is they're really informed about what's going on. They're not surprised to see anything in here. They've been part of the conversation when I go to New York to negotiate, working with them back home to make sure that we're arguing for the things that they want to see and are happy with as well. So they're ready. The second thing is, as you will know, Rajeshvar, embarking upon a government wide spending review at the moment. This will in line with the government's priorities set out how government ministers are going to take forward their agenda over the next five years. This is the big strategic process we have across government and I'm really pleased to say that the Chief Secretary to the treasury and the Cabinet Office Minister have written to departments saying we need you to think about how you're going to be implementing the global goals linking in with that process. So we'll see where this all comes out. As you said, government's job is to take prioritised decisions, but it's fed into the process. Ministers are aware they're ready and they're now thinking through what that will mean in terms of their plans for the future.
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Does it matter if in 15 years from now we're sitting here and the SDGs have not all been achieved?
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Well, okay, I hope they all will be achieved.
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The SDGs were not all achieved.
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They Weren't all achieved everywhere, mainly weren't achieved. I don't agree with that statement and I'm sure we can get you some data on that, although your colleagues at CGD have some data too.
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Let's look at the targets of the MDGs. I mean, yes, there's been an awful lot of progress, and let's not underestimate the importance of that. But one of the goals on maternal mortality, for example, the target wasn't quite reached. I think it was to cut maternal deaths by 2/3. And what was reached was half. And yes, that's a fantastic progress because half those, that many more women are surviving childbirth, which is extremely important. But it wasn't mass. It wasn't actually. You couldn't tick that box. But I don't know if it actually matters, and I'm wondering, you know, if it matters whether the SDGs are achieved.
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Well, we should aim to achieve them. But you're right in saying that there's an element of aspiration versus achievability in all of the goals. And the headline goal statement tend to be more at the aspirational end. And the targets are largely formed in a way where we're hoping that they will be met. But they do combine an element of aspiration. Otherwise, what's the point having a target if we're going to hit them anyway, then why have it? The point is to try and bend the curve. And actually the maternal mortality goal from the NDGS is a good example of how realizing that progress wasn't as fast as we'd hoped, getting the world to work more concertedly together to achieve it. And there is some good evidence about how that curve was changed and improved. So point taken. We didn't quite meet the goal. Some countries did, though. In fact, many countries did meet that goal of getting to 2/3. But globally we didn't quite make it. So does it matter? I think we should. Okay, first we should strive. Secondly, we need to think about the importance of galvanising efforts. I think that the big challenge is to galvanise the partnerships are needed behind each area. And I hope we'll be coming back in 15 years time and saying that we've made fantastic progress against peace and that we've met many of the targets, if not all of them, and especially the really talismanic ones, from my point of view, around extreme poverty and around the issues that affect the poorest people in the world.
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So in a way, rather than a to do list, it's a wish list.
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A wish list and that sounds slightly pejorative. And the agenda is very comprehensive and I know that you discussed that with Tony Pippa a few weeks ago. We have the challenge that there is a lot to do in here. But as you said earlier, some countries will have some things that are more important than others and so they'll need to take the choices. What I'm hoping is that countries will take the difficult choices and not just pick the the low hanging fruit. So we'll tackle some of the more politically and economically challenging issues that are important for their sustainable development, not just the ones that they could easily reach. And so I don't quite like the sort of concept of a wish list, but it is an important list of the issues that matter for the world. And for some countries they may have particular priorities within those that are rightly the ones are who that they should focus on.
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David Hallam, thank you very much for being on the podcast.
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Thank you.
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You can find out much more about the SDGs, the work of Charles Kenny, Casey Dunning, owen Barda from CGD on this on our website cgdev.org you can also listen to previous podcasts, including the one with Tony Pippa that David was just talking about there. I'm Rajesh Merchandani and please as always remember to join me for the next podcast from the center for Global Development.
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It.