Pushing forward sustainable development

Last week, the European Commission announced its development cooperation framework for the European Union and its Member States. The new European Consensus on Development is an ambitious, new and collective response to global challenges. A timely blueprint, it is anchored on the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda: people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership.

What is interesting in the 2030 Agenda is that it sets out a transformative approach: it integrates and balances the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, along with poverty eradication. It also addresses peaceful and inclusive societies, and the fight against inequality in all its dimensions. It is based on human rights for all and the commitment to “leave no one behind.”

The roadmap also prescribes a more integrated approach as interventions in one field of action have an impact in other areas. The development policy therefore needs to give more emphasis to key drivers with cross-cutting transformative potential such as gender equality, youth, sustainable energy and climate action, investment, migration and mobility.

Let me quote EU’s High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini who said that “in our times we are more interconnected than ever before, so investing in people beyond our borders is also an investment for Europe.” She said that “the proposals have the common aim of strengthening the impact of our cooperation with our partners across the world, while promoting sustainability at home and abroad....The EU will keep leading an external action that supports peace, democracy and good governance, that reinforces resilience at all levels and promotes shared and sustainable prosperity for all.”

Universality of the Agenda is also fundamental as it applies to all countries. Each has a meaningful role to play, domestically and in the global effort. Therefore there is the need to account for all our responsibilities, taking into account different national realities, capacities and levels of development.

What does this proposal mean?   In concrete terms, the new development framework means that the European Union takes on its global role in promoting gender equality and women and girls’ empowerment in its external actions; focusing on supporting youth and improving their future prospects; addressing sustainable energy needs; better managing migration and forced displacement in partner countries; developing new partnerships with more advanced developing countries. At the same time, the EU through its European External Investment Plan will provide a climate to leveraging funds from other sources and to creating quality and decent jobs.

Next steps

Following the proposal, the EU shall therefore work to mainstream the Sustainable Development Goals in the European policy framework and current Commission priorities. It will also use all instruments at its disposal to ensure that existing and upcoming policies will always consider the three pillars of sustainable development: social, environmental and economic.

To further create a more engaging and dynamic dialogue between and among stakeholders from both  private and public spheres, the European Commission will launch a multi-stakeholder platform to inspire exchange of best practices on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals across sectors.

Philippines’ development agenda

As these announcements are being made, the Philippines has also been plotting out its own socio-economic agenda on a positive mode especially after the GDP hit 7.1 percent in the third quarter of this year. The National Economic Development Authority said that its main concern at the moment is how the growth prospects for this year and beyond will translate to poverty reduction and improvements in the quality of life of Filipinos for the next six years.

In a recent statement, NEDA Undersecretary Rosemarie Edillon said that what we have seen from our experience over the last three years – sustained strong growth, underpinned by economic and political stability and accompanied by sound social programs – is essential in this regard. The NEDA official cites the implementation of the Responsible Parenthood Reproductive Health Law as a step to helping the country. She also said that the official adoption, through Executive Order No. 5, of Ambisyon Natin 2040 as guide for development planning across administrations is an important breakthrough towards greater policy coherence horizontally, vertically and inter-temporally.

The NEDA official further called on both the government and the private sector to take every opportunity to maximise the country’s growth to eliminate poverty, to create quality jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities and to empower Filipinos especially the marginalized sector that will result in genuine inclusive growth.

As the Philippines continues to map out its Philippine Development Plan from 2017 to 2022, one cannot help but observe the shared vision and goals of both the EU and the Philippines. But while there are parallelisms in the development aspirations, what is interesting is the focus on sustainability even in the approach not just in the means as NEDA Chief Pernia hopes “to develop a plan which ensures sustainability of development initiatives with long-term goals in mind, and thus safeguarding against drawbacks of having plans bound by the terms of political administrations.”

Women and youth as front liners in achieving Sustainable Development Goals

In the crux of the development sphere both in the EU and in the Philippines’ sides are the women and youth who should not be seen as beneficiaries but rather as agents for change and development especially because close to half of the global population of 7.5 billion are women while 2.2 billion are children. In the Philippines, 49.6 percent of the country’s population are women while 41.8 percent are children.

In the EU Delegation in the Philippines, we have long endeavoured to give priority and attention to women and children.

In the areas of health care, we have strengthened the quality of reproductive health care services in remote areas in the country and have provided a funding of P42 million to the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples which has worked in close coordination with the Department of Health; while an EU/UNICEF partnership has also supported nutrition policy-making, capacity development, knowledge sharing and scaling up evidence-based key nutrition interventions. Some of our interventions include among others, enhancing maternal health services in Eastern Visayas and improving availability of reproductive health services in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao .

Another illustration of how we value women and youth is our “Support Peace – Bangsamoro Project” which is implemented by the United Nations Development Programme With the aim to strengthen the enabling environment for peace and stability in the Bangsamoro and its surrounding areas, this initiative has been providing a venue in allowing active participation of youth and women in public conversations/spaces linked to the establishment of the Bangsamoro Government.

Just this November, the project has supported leadership training and dialogue held by the United Youth for Peace and Development and so far, 30 sons and daughters of MILF and MNLF members from Central Mindanao were trained in preparation for their dialogue with indigenous peoples and youth settlers in the Bangsamoro.

A training programme on culture of peace followed by an immersion exercise in peace and development communities among youths from Cotabato City was also conducted by Kadtabanga Foundation for Peace and Development Advocates Inc. This exercise aims to provide the youth opportunity to learn from experiences of these PDCs comprising of former conflict-affected communities to make them more active agents for social change. Women leaders including MILF women combatants from Bangsamoro communities and CSOs also participated in a dialogue to gather ideas on their roles during the transition. During the last week of November, the Mothers for Peace Social Enterprise are also conducting training among women leaders who shall form part of peace circles to support the peace and development Roadmap.

These are just recent actions in the country that the EU does together with its partners to put women and youth in the forefront of development. Certainly women and youth should always form an integral part of any development agenda such as those laid out in the Agenda 2030. At its helm is the EU determined to step up efforts not only in gender equality but in addressing other cross-cutting challenges such as sustainable energy, climate action, investment, migration and mobility.