16 July 2021

New York, USA/Chiang Mai, Thailand

A coalition of 610 civil society organisations from Asia and the Pacific has expressed deep disappointment at the conclusion of the United Nations High Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development, especially the lack of concrete ways forward to achieve the SDGs agenda. This UN meeting of governments, civil society, and other stakeholders was crucial for a just and transformative COVID-19 recovery and achieving development justice for the millions who have been directly or indirectly impacted in the region.

The meeting was a missed opportunity since the current narrative puts more burden on national governments rather than collective response and international collaboration to tackle these multiple crises. There were no references or suggestions to enhance or expedite post-pandemic effort and just reaffirmations of past commitments. “The ministerial declaration was adopted yesterday after undergoing difficult negotiations. The fact that fundamental issues such as gender equality, human rights, and climate crisis were put up for debate by the governments shows their lack of commitment and accountability to the peoples, especially from developing and poor countries, who are deeply impacted by these issues. A declaration by all governments is not enough, it is time to take action,” said Wanun Permpibul, Climate Watch Thailand.

The price of inaction for not taking genuinely transformative actions globally is not only regressive, but will also worsen the already existing inequalities and injustices for the majority of the people in Global South countries, especially grassroots women. “It is appalling that despite documented evidence of the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on women, some governments such as Russia and Saudi Arabia want to retreat on the commitment to gender equality and insist on the removal of references to rights for all women and girls as well as sexual and gender based violence. This is not acceptable. Even more so in this time of pandemic, there is an urgent need for gender responsive and integrated responses to COVID-19,” said Feng Yuan, Equality (Beijing), China.

It is also disappointing to see rich countries fail to take concrete steps on removing barriers to climate justice including financing for climate action. “We have seen   governments  just reiterate their existing commitment from the Paris Agreement without any concrete financial commitment for climate mitigation and adaptation. Developed countries must fulfill their obligations to deliver the climate finance needed for developing countries instead of dependence on private sector finance. COVID-19 pandemic must not be used as an excuse for not delivering on this promise. Rich countries cannot get away by doing ‘net’ zero emissions – continue to pollute as usual and seek to compensate for their emissions – instead of ‘real’ zero emissions, ” said Wanun.

COVID-19 pandemic has amplified systemic vulnerabilities and further widened  inequalities within and among countries. 40 out of 43 countries in Asia and the Pacific are facing an unprecedented increase in the debt to GDP ratio, yet the declaration failed to mobilise concerted action on sovereign debt cancellation. Ali Jillani, Karachi Research Chair, Pakistan added, “The governments need to urgently agree on TRIPS waiver to ensure equitable access for vaccines, especially in the developing countries. Rather than pushing the developing countries for domestic resource mobilisation, the declaration should have articulated commitments to help these countries address corporate capture, debt distress, illicit financial flows, tax evasions, and neoliberal instruments like Investor State Dispute Settlement to stop the outflow of trillions of dollars critical for post-pandemic recovery and SDGs fulfillment”.

While governments scrambled to put out the ministerial declaration on the way forward, they should have upheld the right to self-determination for people living under colonial and foreign occupation, and challenge structural barriers to development like militarism and colonialism. A weakened consensus and lower ambitions by governments cannot lead to achieving the SDGs agenda.

 

About Us

Asia pacific Regional CSOs Engagement Mechanism (AP-RCEM) is a civil society platform of 610 civil society organizations from 38 countries across Asia and the Pacific. AP-RCEM’s 17 constituencies aim to enable stronger cross constituency coordination and ensure that voices of all subregions of Asia and the Pacific are heard in United Nations intergovernmental processes at the regional and global level. AP-RCEM is designed to reach the broadest number of CSOs in the region, harness the voice of grassroots and peoples’ movements to advance development justice that address the inequalities of wealth, power, resources between countries, between rich and poor and between men and women. 

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Rachitaa Gupta, Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development at rachitaa@apwld.org