Stakeholder Democracy: Represented Democracy in a Time of Fear

In the context of sustainable development, this book describes how we are moving from representative to participatory democracy, and how we are now in a "stakeholder democracy which is working to strengthen represented democracy in a time of fear.

Since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit the idea of stakeholder democracy has grown, with stakeholders engaged in helping governments and intergovernmental bodies make better decisions, and in helping them to deliver those decisions in partnerships amongst various stakeholders, with and without government. Seen through a multi-stakeholder, sector and level lens, this book describes the history of the development of stakeholder democracy, particularly in the area of sustainable development. The authors draw on more than twenty-five years of experience to review, learn from and make recommendations on how best to engage stakeholders in policy development. The book illustrates successful practical examples of multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs) to implement agreements and outline elements of an MSP Charter. This will provide a benchmark for partnerships, enabling those being developed to understand what the necessary quality standards are and to understand what is expected in terms of transparency, accountability, financial reporting, impact and governance.

The book is essential reading for professionals and trainees engaging in multi-stakeholder processes for policy development and to implement agreements. It will also be useful for students of sustainable development, politics and international relations.

Governance for Sustainable Development Volume 2: Ideas for the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development

Achieving sustainable development requires an enabling environment. Governance plays a crucial role in creating those conditions, notably, for our purposes in the implementation of the 2030 sustainable development agenda process. From creating new platforms to reforming old ones, the process must live up to this standard and its mechanisms should be geared towards fostering this type of new international environment and cooperation for sustainable development. This is the second volume produced by the Friends Group. The first volume presented the period from late 2014 to the end of 2015. The Group also has a website which it places the papers that are being discussed at the Friends Group’s meetings, which can be found here. The chapters of this book are a reflection of the rich contributions made by governments, intergovernmental bodies and stakeholders to the three workshops that the Friends Group hosted in 2017.

Sustainable Development Volume 4: Challenges and Opportunities for Implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

New book Governance for Sustainable Development Volume 4: Challenges and Opportunities for Implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Friends of Governance for Sustainable Development were originally set up in 2010 to help member States prepare for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20). They were re-established during the Open Working Group for the Post 2015 Agenda in 2014.

The Friends group has since then continued to host workshops on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The 2030 Agenda represents one of the most important sets of Global Goals that the international community has committed to. It is an unprecedented effort that embodies universal aspirations for achieving a more just, equitable, peaceful and sustainable future. It is an excellent example of successful multilateralism.

This ambitious and unique exercise represents a paradigm shift in policy-making for sustainable development. It gives a roadmap by which we all, the UN, governments, and stakeholders can work together to address the most pressing global challenges. In this context, the rule of law, as well as effective, robust, participatory and accountable institutions are of the utmost importance to achieve the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and their 169 targets.

This is the fourth book that the Group of Friends of the Governance for Sustainable Development has produced in an effort to share widely the papers that have been presented at the workshops for member States to discuss. The Group recognize that there is an inextricable link between good governance and sustainable development and that, as the 2030 Agenda is implemented, governance challenges will need discussion and action at all levels and by all institutions.

Mindful of these challenges, the governments of Germany, Morocco, Nigeria, Romania and the Republic of Korea, with the technical support of the Tellus Institute and the secretariat being provided by ARTICLE 19 have tried to create an informal space for member States to discuss governance-related issues.

In 2019, the Group of Friends convened UN officials, experts, and representatives from the government at three participatory workshops on governance and the 2030 Agenda implementation and supported a fourth organized by Stakeholder Forum for a Common Future. The workshops were organized in partnership with the UN-DESA Office of Intergovernmental Support and Coordination for Sustainable Development focusing on advancing the 2030 Agenda into the HLPF’s Second Cycle and lessons learned from the first cycle.

The Group of Friends in 2020 will continue to be a place for discussions of the institutional architecture for the 2030 Agenda’s implementation, follow-up, and review.

We expect the present publication to be a useful input for the ongoing discussions about the institutional architecture for the 2030 Agenda. This agenda has already captured the imagination of this generation. We now know that sustainable development will only become a reality if we have the enabling environment for it to happen. Good governance will be pivotal for implementing, reviewing and improving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We hope that this publication contributes to addressing the challenges we will be facing over the coming years to 2030.    

The new book Governance for Sustainable Development Volume 4: Challenges and Opportunities for Implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is avaiulable on amazon. Also available as a free download from the Friends of Governance for Sustainable Development web site.

The book chapters are as follows:

Edited by: Verena Klinger-Dering, Meriem El Hilali, Hyemi Kim, Samuel Victor Makwe, Cristina Popescu, David Banisar, Felix Dodds and Quinn McKew

Chapter 1:       Justice, Peace, and Inclusion for Sustainability or Climate Apartheid? Michael K Dorsey

Chapter 2:       Europe's approach to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals, Ingeborg Niestroy, Elisabeth Hege, Elizabeth Dirth and Ruben Zondervan

Chapter 3:      The Misaligned SDG targets: How to handle target dates before 2030, Felix Dodds, Jamie Bartram and Gastón Ocampo

Chapter 4:       Options for the SDG Environment Targets Maturing in 2020, Claire Blanchard

Chapter 5:       From numbers to action - how to leverage the 2030 Agenda reporting structure to accelerate SDG 16 implementation, Anne Kahl

Chapter 6:      How can the High-Level Political Forum identify and deal with new and emerging issues? Cat Tully

Chapter 7:      Sustainable Development Goals: Creating more actionable process outcomes, Gary Lawrence

Chapter 8:       The Role of the German Council for Sustainable Development, Günther Bachmann

Chapter 9:       The Basque Sustainable Bonds, Jorge Fernandez-Quintela

Chapter 10:     Mobilizing business action to advance the 2030 Agenda: harnessing the potential of the UN Global Compact, Felipe Morgado

Chapter 11:  The High-Level Political Forum Review 2020: An Opportunity to Fulfill the HLPF’s Mandate, Marianne Beisheim and Steven Bernstein

Governance for Sustainable Development Volume 5: Implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Governance Challenges

This is the fifth book that the Group of Friends of the Governance for Sustainable Development: Volume 5 of Friends of Governance for Sustainable Development – Implementing the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development: Governance Challenges was produced to share widely the papers that were presented at the workshops for member States to discuss. The Group recognize that there is an inextricable link between good governance and sustainable development and that, as the 2030 Agenda is implemented, governance challenges will need discussion and action at all levels and by all institutions. In 2020, during the pandemic, the Group of Friends convened UN officials, experts, and representatives from government at four participatory workshops on relevant governance issues.

The workshops were organized in partnership with UN-DESA Office of Intergovernmental Support and Coordination for Sustainable Development focusing on advancing the 2030 Agenda into the HLPF’s Second Cycle, and lessons learnt from the first cycle.
The Group of Friends in 2021 will continue to be a place for discussions of the institutional architecture for the delivery of the 2030 Agenda, the Paris Climate Agreement and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda.

The four workshops cover a multitude of issues such as climate change, climate finance, Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review, North-South and South-South cooperation, Impact of COVID-19: perspective from Voluntary National Reviews, COVID-19 Transparency Gap, the Challenges for Glasgow COP, Disasters due to Climate Change for Sustainable Development, The UN General Assembly Special Session on Corruption: Opportunities and Challenges, Financial Accountability, Transparency, and Integrity for Sustainable Development, Time to negotiate a UN convention to address tax havens and international tax dodging.

Negotiating the Sustainable Development Goals: A transformational agenda for an insecure world

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a universal set of seventeen goals and 169 targets, with accompanying indicators, which were agreed by UN member states to frame their policy agendas for the fifteen-year period from 2015 to 2030. Written by three authors who have been engaged in the development of the SDGs from the beginning, this book offers an insider view of the process and a unique entry into what will be seen as one of the most significant negotiations and global policy agendas of the twenty-first century. 

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